Elf-Boy and Turniphead Save Christmas
by eilonwy77
Summary: Three weeks before Christmas, Merlin's mum gets a job as governess to the pratty son of a magic-hating king. As far as early Christmas presents go, it is a tremendous disappointment. -Chapter 17: In which Merlin has a very happy fifth day of Christmas. COMPLETE.
1. In which Merlin meets the prince

Summary: _Three weeks before Merlin's eleventh Christmas, he is introduced to the thirteen-year old Arthur Pendragon, Prince of Camelot and eventual heir to the throne of all Albion. As far as early Christmas presents go, it is a tremendous disappointment._

When Merlin's mum is hired as royal governess by a magic-hating king, Merlin is not happy. Sharing Christmas with a turniphead of a prince does nothing to help his holiday spirit. And he had been so good this year. . . .

Disclaimer: Merlin characters are the property of Shine and BBC. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Notes: Originally written for the WinterKnights fest. Based on the idea that Merlin thinks Arthur has been naughty, so puts coal in his Christmas stocking. The story developed a plot along the way. The complete story contains 17 chapters. This will be updated regularly, as it has already been written.

Thanks to LFB72 for the original motivation to write a story and for the gorgeous illustration, Winter_mod for the help/encouragement, to DJF for editing, and BW for the support.

* * *

 **Chapter One** : _In which Merlin meets the prince and is not impressed_

* * *

It was just three weeks before Merlin's eleventh Christmas when he was introduced to the thirteen-year old Arthur Pendragon, Prince of Camelot and eventual heir to the throne of all Albion. As far as early Christmas presents go, it was a tremendous disappointment.

Merlin's mum was thrilled with the opportunities her new position as royal governess would offer. She seemed particularly excited on Merlin's behalf, but was rather vague about the details whenever questioned. Merlin himself was not convinced it was a smart idea to move into the official residence of the king who was in charge of prosecuting all magic users. Nor was he looking forward to living near the prince. His mum had spent a lot of time and energy making sure Merlin knew how to behave respectfully and deferentially, and he wanted nothing to do with it.

"It's like you want me to go around actually licking his boots, Mum!" he had whined, after she had made him practice the proper forms of royal address for what felt like the thousandth time.

His mum, who sometimes seemed to have an actual heart of stone, just raised her eyebrows at him before going back to chopping onions for their dinner. "Screw this up, Merlin, and you'll be lucky if all you have to do is lick his boots. Now, why don't you make a salad while telling me all of the king's and prince's formal titles."

Merlin sighed the sigh of the long-suffering. No, he really didn't want to move into the palace. Not at all. He tried again.

"Isn't the prince too old for a governess? I thought governesses were for babies?"

"You know the prince lost his mother in childbirth, the poor little lamb. And his father doesn't have much time to spend with his children. The princess manages on her own, but the prince is young enough that the king prefers him to have someone to be responsible for his day-to-day affairs. The governess provides companionship, too, a surrogate mother of sorts."

Merlin hoped all of the mothering the prince needed would take place while Merlin was at school. He preferred to share his mum as little as possible.

The day they moved to the palace, Mum made him wear his nicest clothes. All he had was a worn collared shirt with a tie he didn't know how to tie. Mum tried to teach him how to do it, and he tried very stubbornly not to learn, as a protest against the whole ridiculous affair.

They drove their clunker of a car through some service roads around to the back of Camelot Palace. The service roads afforded no view of the front of the palace, but from the back it was large and imposing, sculpted white stone walls rising up from extensive flower beds, dozens of windows staring down at them. There were no flowers now, though, and the bushes were little more than piles of bare sticks, huddling together for warmth.

They got out of the car, and a man dressed in a valet's uniform took Mum's keys and drove the car away. Merlin's mum strode confidently in through a wooden door marked "Service and Deliveries"; Merlin supposed she must have been here before. Even at the service entrance Merlin felt woefully out-of-place. The doors seemed twice as large as the regular kind, the floor was tiled to within an inch of its life, and the bottom half of the walls was covered with wooden paneling, leaving room for a large assortment of gold-framed portraits up above.

Right inside the door was a security checkpoint. Merlin's mum produced a packet of papers for the palace guards to look at, and then they were checked with a metal detector. Mum went through without issue, but when Merlin stepped through, he felt a strange tingle. An obnoxious buzz rang through the hallway, accompanied by a series of red and blue flashing lights. Merlin's heart thumped with sudden adrenaline. He was confident he wasn't carrying anything metal. So why did he set off the alarm? Just a mistake, right?

The hallway flooded with more guards. They poured in faster than Merlin could register. The two who had been in charge of the scanner had each grabbed him by an arm and dragged him into a windowless room just a few paces away. He noticed the guns hanging at their waists and the strength of the arms that were pulling him along. He could hear his mum protesting outside the room, but they would not let her in. One of the guards took a metal detector wand and passed it over his body. It remained silent.

The guards looked confused that they hadn't found anything. One patted Merlin all over, but he wasn't carrying anything. Were they going to do a strip search next? Merlin hoped that the stories he'd heard about body cavity searches were just rumors. Oh, God . . . they wouldn't really do that, right?

The room suddenly felt about twenty degrees too hot. His heart started doing strange fluttery things in his chest. Merlin was just about to panic when he heard a loud voice calling out in the hall, "Why are you detaining Mr Emrys? He and his mother have already presented their papers. They are on the king's pre-approved entry list. What is the holdup?"

One of the guards answered, "He set off the new detector, sir. We were just following procedure. The captain has been adamant that we detain everyone who sets it off."

The owner of the loud voice sounded exasperated. "You know this detector is highly experimental and prone to false readings. That is why we have the pre-approved list. In the future, make sure you check it. Now let the boy out. We have an appointment with his Highness."

"Yes, sir. Right away." The guard hesitated, sounding neither convinced or pleased, but came in to the room where Merlin was trying not to think about full body cavity searches.

The guard squinted at Merlin. "You heard the man. Off with you." Merlin scuttled past the gun-toting men into the cool hallway. He desperately hoped he wouldn't have to go through that process every time he came into his new home, but had the sinking feeling that he would. Maybe next time he could tell them he was on the pre-approved list and the guards would be intelligent enough to check it.

While Merlin was catching his breath, trying very hard not to feel like a mouse in a lion's cage, an elderly man in a navy suit came up to him. Mum hurried over, looking pleased to see the man, and reached out to give him a hug.

The old man looked equally pleased to see Mum. "Hunith, my dear, it's been too long!" It was the same voice that had rescued him from the detention room, though considerably warmer and less authoritative now.

"Uncle Gaius! I'm so glad to see you! Thank you so much for getting me this opportunity!" And she reached out to kiss him on the cheek.

Merlin was startled, as he'd never seen his mum kiss anybody but him before, and certainly not some old guy with ratty grey hair. But before he had time to dwell on this, Mum pushed him forwards to hug Uncle Gaius as well. Merlin did his best to grin and bear it, though he wasn't keen on hugging strangers or old men, even if they did happen to be some sort of family relation.

"Ah, Merlin, you've grown so much since I last saw you"—honestly, did adults never think of anything original to say?—"and I welcome this chance to get to know you. I told your mother years ago that I'd love the chance to tutor you, but we haven't been in the same city long enough to make it work. After the New Year we should be able to fit some weekly lessons into your schedule."

Huh, that was strange. Merlin was already enrolled in the city's general school, the free one for all the unlucky sods who hadn't been born with nine-figure trust funds. He wondered what kind of lessons Gaius could possibly mean. Probably more ways to properly lick the royal boots.

Gaius stepped back a bit and said, "Well, if you both will follow me, I'll take you to meet the prince. He's waiting in his personal sitting room. Both the governess's suite and the prince's suite connect to the sitting room. You'll be right there next to him, which should make everything very convenient. He's old enough to be pretty self-sufficient these days, but it's not good for him to remain holed up in his rooms alone the way he does. Ever since the Collins incident, the king rarely lets him leave the palace."

Merlin had no idea what "the Collins incident" could be, but his mother nodded along as if she understood everything. Merlin decided to ask Mum about it later, though it could be challenging to get information out of her. She was a stellar secret-keeper. He appreciated this for her ability to keep his own secrets, but it sure was annoying anytime he wanted to learn about someone else.

They walked along corridors and up stairwells that were progressively fancier the farther they went. There was an impressive array of Christmas decorations, with evergreen wreaths, pine trees, berry-laden garlands, and fairy lights twinkling everywhere. Merlin started to feel more and more intimidated as they went along. He was also hopelessly lost. It would be impossible to make it back to the service door without help. Before school tomorrow, he'd have to find his way through the maze and out to the bus stop. He wasn't looking forward to it.

By the time they reached the wing of the palace that was reserved for members of the royal family and their immediate staff, Merlin had begun to feel very small. He was surrounded by opulence on a scale of which he had never imagined. Merlin wondered if the king wanted it that way in order to intimidate his guests. A sudden wave of rebellion coursed up through him at that thought. He decided then and there that he was not going to be intimidated by all this fancy royalty business. If this was going to be where he had to live, then he would darn well treat it like any other home.

#

The introduction took place in the prince's private sitting room. Gaius, who worked for the King Himself and was responsible for getting Mum this new job, led them into the room. Merlin trailed behind, nervously eyeing the two steely-eyed guards who stood outside the doorway.

It's not that Merlin was hiding behind his mother's skirts like a baby. Nor was he going back on his newly-made resolution to not be intimidated. It's just that the room was impressively big, and yes, okay, his old self (of five minutes ago) might have been a little bit intimidated. But this brave new Merlin was merely curious, he told himself. Standing back from the front lines, so to speak, gave him a bit more time to take in details before being called into action. It was just logical.

Merlin stared at the sitting room in a cross between awe and annoyance. It looked like Santa Claus had decided to spew his holiday cheer everywhere. Each possible surface was covered with a sparkly bauble or twinkling light. A fire burned within a slate fireplace, a solitary Christmas stocking hanging from the sculpted wood mantel. Various couches and armchairs were scattered around, including a white sofa positioned perfectly for gazing into the fire. There was a Christmas tree that nearly reached to the moulding on the elevated ceiling. The tree dripped with red and gold ornaments and was topped with a sparkling angel. The windows were extensive and trimmed with even more lights. What sort of room would have that many windows? And how on earth did they manage to get that large of a tree to fit through the door?

Merlin grudgingly decided that the room looked like it had fallen out of one of his mother's Christmas catalogues, the ones that came in the mail. Each year Mum would look at them longingly and mutter 'maybe next year'. This made Merlin dislike the room on principle. Rooms like this made Merlin's mum sad, and Merlin's mum should never be sad.

The only thing that didn't look like it had jumped out of a holiday catalogue was a long, convoluted train track that criss-crossed its way across the floor en route to wrapping around some of the furniture. Merlin wondered where the train was that ran on those tracks. It was probably amazing.

Gaius's voice cut through his contemplation. "Your Highness, I would like to present to you your new governess, and my niece, Miss Hunith Emrys. Hunith, this is His Royal Highness, Prince Arthur Pendragon of Camelot."

Merlin turned a little to peek out from where he was not-hiding behind his mother. He examined the person he decided was responsible for this newest upheaval in his life. His mum was honest-to-goodness curtsying before a tall, golden-haired boy. The boy was dressed in a grey suit with a red-and-gold striped tie. Merlin's first thought was that those clothes looked horribly uncomfortable. How would you ever be able to go out and ride a bike or look for frogs wearing something like that? Why on earth would you wear something like that at home? Gaius could be excused, as he was technically working. But the prince was in the privacy of his own rooms, and Merlin doubted he had dressed up just for them.

Merlin's attention was yanked away from thoughts of royal outfits when the prince blurted out, "And who's this?" He reached out to grab Merlin's wrist and pulled him out from behind his mum. Merlin, surprised by the sudden movement and painfully strong hand grasp, jerked forwards unsteadily, tripped over his feet, and fell to the floor.

Merlin shouted in surprise. "Ow! What'd you do that for?"

"Merlin!" his mum hissed. "Be polite!"

"Tell him to be polite! That hurt!" Merlin was angry and had no desire to hide it.

Mum whispered at him with the venom of a spitting snake. "Merlin! You can't tell the Prince of Camelot to be polite!"

"Why not? You tell me to be polite all the time." But whatever answer Merlin thought he might get was never to be heard.

"You're an elf!" the not-polite prince said, interrupting their agitated whispers.

"What!?" Both Merlin and his mom looked up in surprise. And then Merlin added petulantly, "I'm not an elf!"

The prince bounced on the balls of his feet, which made the tie on his suit flap around.

"You're an elf! Look at your ears! Elf ears for sure. Are you lost? I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure the North Pole's up that way somewhere." The prince waved his hand vaguely towards a garland-bedecked window. "I imagine if you get started and just keep going that direction, you'll get back to Santa's workshop eventually."

Merlin's hands flew up to his ears, which were turning redder by the second.

"I'm not an elf! You're a . . . a . . ."—Merlin struggled to find the worst insult he could—". . . a turniphead!"

"Merlin!" His mother yanked him backwards. Her fingernails dug painfully into the scruff of his neck.

The prince turned red in the face, but a dangerous glint appeared in his eyes.

"You can't speak to me that way!" he said, in what Merlin would later come to regard as his most spoiled pompous prat voice. "Don't you know who I am? I'm the prince!"

Merlin's mum apparently knew who he was, because she dug her fingernails even more deeply into Merlin's poor neck. She tried to put her other hand over his mouth, to silence him—or possibly suffocate him—but Merlin wasn't having any of it. He squirmed away like the slippery eel he was and turned back to the turniphead.

"Well, you can't be a prince! Princes are supposed to be kind . . . and good . . . and . . . they're supposed to care about other people! You're not like that at all!"

To his horror, Merlin almost burst into tears. But Mum finally got a hold of him and thrust him behind her. Words spewed out of her mouth at an alarming rate, things like "I'm so sorry, your Highness" and "I don't know what's gotten into him; he's usually so polite". Merlin didn't pay much attention. He steamed inside at the injustice of it all. If he'd ever made fun of someone's ears, his mum would have smacked his bum, hard. Repeatedly. With a spatula.

Uncle Gaius had watched all this with a quirk in his eyebrow and his lips pressed together. If he didn't know better, Merlin would have thought him on the verge of laughter. Once it seemed there would be no more outbursts, as the (obviously fake) prince gaped wordlessly, Gaius said, "While this has been a most interesting introduction, I'm sure Miss Emrys is ready to see her new home. And you, your Highness, have schoolwork to do. I will check on you once I've finished showing your new governess around."


	2. In which Merlin apologizes, sort of

**Chapter Two** : In which Merlin apologises for his behaviour, sort of

* * *

Merlin was dismayed to see his new home was so close to where that spoiled brat of a prince lived. From the Christmas catalogue room (as Merlin would think of it forevermore) they followed Gaius through a door. And suddenly—a bit too suddenly—they were there.

It was a small apartment set aside for the prince's governess, or so Gaius said. Merlin felt sure he wasn't going to like this whole governess gig if it meant spending any length of time with that turniphead. But he was pleased with his new home. The rooms were small, but clean and filled with natural light, boasting windows with a view of a tree-filled garden. There was a living room just big enough to fit a couch, table and television; a kitchen so tiny it could probably fit in a wardrobe; and a small bedroom for his mum.

"Where's my room?" he said. Mum came up behind him and gave him a sort of half-hug. He suspected he might have gotten a better one if she hadn't been angered by his behavior.

"I figured you wouldn't mind sharing with me, love." Sure, now that she's the deliverer of bad news, she tries to be all sweet again. "Traditionally, the governess had no family of her own. She was free to spend all her energy taking care of the royal children. It might seem outdated, but it worked well. I'm an exception, having you here with me. But Gaius convinced the king that I'd do an excellent job and that having another child around might be good for the prince. And as atrocious as your behavior was, it does seem like he could do with a little practice on how to talk to other people."

Merlin opened his mouth, ready to chime in with just how horrid he thought that fake excuse for a prince was, but his mother knew him well and cut him off.

"That still doesn't excuse you, young man. As soon as we get settled in here, you are going to write the prince a letter of apology and then hand-deliver it to him. Just because someone else is being rude doesn't mean you can be too. We should always strive to be a good example for others."

Hand-delivered to that turniphead? He'd much rather his mother broke out the spatula. Geez, he hated it when she got in her preachy moods. Probably came from spending so much time minding other people's children. His only consolation was that soon enough she'd be turning some of that attention on to the prince.

Merlin didn't have much to unpack. This normally wouldn't bother him, but this time it meant he had to start on that apology letter all too soon. He dithered around a bit in his school bag before pulling out a pencil and a sheet of paper ripped messily from his notebook. His teachers at school would look at the frayed edge of the paper in horror, but Merlin really couldn't be bothered to care.

He lifted the pencil and hastily scrawled, in his most untidy writing:

 _Dear prince prat._

 _I guess I'm sorry for calling you a turniphead. Next time I'll try not to say it out loud when I'm thinking it._

 _Merlin_

Of course, Merlin's mum made him go back and redo most of it ("You know why, Merlin, don't look at me like that!") but that didn't stop him from using a little bit of his magic to restore it to its original state. Minor alterations like that were usually easy, and he had no compunctions against using magic to make his life a little bit more satisfying now and then. His mum would have a fit if she knew all that he used it for ("Just because they've done away with automatic capital punishment for magic users doesn't mean it's not still illegal, Merlin! Please stop trying to give your poor mother a heart attack!") but he just couldn't help it. Magic was an itch under his skin that was begging to be scratched, and if he was going to scratch at something, it might as well be the prince.

#

Merlin's mum sent him to deliver his apology letter alone.

"You need to learn to take responsibility for your own actions," she had said, sounding an awful lot like that person she sometimes watched on the telly—the one who always told parents what an awful job they did raising their children. Merlin had quite enjoyed seeing that parents could be as stupid as their kids. . . . But now his mother was getting ideas.

"And I'm going to check with the prince later to make sure you made your apologies, so no running away, mister."

Ugh.

So Merlin found his way past the Christmas catalogue room, through a fancy door and down a hall that led to the turniphead's bedroom. The walls in this hallway were covered in framed paintings of rather ugly people, probably Arthur's royal ancestors. He contemplated using magic to make the images even uglier; he might be able to highlight all the imperfections just a smidge. Nobody would ever even notice. Probably.

Besides the portraits, the hallway contained four or five doors. Mum said all those rooms belonged to the prince, but that his bedroom, where he spent most of his time, was the first one. Merlin pounded three times on the first door, hurting his knuckles in the process. Maybe no one would answer and his mum would forget about it all by tomorrow. But his fantasies were dashed when a commanding voice yelled, "Come in!"

The turniphead's bedroom seemed fairly normal, sporting various footie posters on the walls and an obnoxious amount of cool-looking toys. There were portable video game systems, sports paraphernalia, and a model rocket; LEGO sets, comic books, and a fancy desktop computer; board games, what looked like a real microscope, and too many other things to properly take notice of. Merlin had never seen such an exciting collection before and was dying to explore. He was reaching for a LEGO train on the floor when a sharp voice said, "Don't touch my things!"

Merlin looked up, startled.

"What do you want, Elf-Boy?"

The reason for this unhappy errand sat at a desk and stared at him as if he were a half-eaten mouse that a cat had regurgitated on his bed. Hey . . . that was an idea. It probably wouldn't be too hard to magic up a dead mouse. But first things first.

"My name's not 'Elf-Boy'," Merlin pouted, clenching the apology letter between his hands in frustration.

"Well, since you never saw fit to inform me of your real name in that charming introduction of yours, what else am I supposed to call you?" Merlin had never heard such a pompous voice in his life.

"Merlin. My name's Merlin."

"Ah, a magical name for a magical elf." The prince looked entirely too pleased with himself.

Merlin clenched his teeth and once again bemoaned the luck that had caused him to be born with eyes glowing gold. He also spent a moment wishing his mum had been a bit less romantic and a tad more practical when naming him. When trying to hide your distressingly magical child from the authorities, it might help to not give said child an obviously magical name. His mum always said it 'just felt right'. Merlin was sure a nice, normal name like Matthew or William would have felt just fine, too.

But anyway, no need to be distracted by what could have been when he had an insulting prat to deal with.

He grit out, "For the last time, I am not an elf!" He just barely refrained from adding, 'but I really wasn't wrong about you being a turniphead'. "My name is Merlin, and you should learn how to use it."

The prat leaned back in his chair, looking rather self-satisfied, and drawled, "Well, then, Merlin, you may call me 'Your Royal Highness'."

Yeah, like that was going to happen.

The turniphead continued, "But there must be some reason you've decided to burden me with your presence. The faster you tell me what you want, the faster you can get out of here. I have actual important people I need to go see."

Could this guy be any more of a prat? Merlin took a deep breath, stewing at the injustice of it all, and said, "I'm supposed to tell you 'sorry'." He thrust the half-crumpled letter at the prince and turned to leave. There. That wasn't so bad.

But then Prince Prat had to ruin it by tapping his desk he was sitting at and saying, "Well? I'm waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"Waiting for you to apologize."

"Well, I already did, you dollophead, so you're going to be waiting a long time."

The prince jolted up in his chair. "What did you just call me?"

In the back of his mind Merlin knew he should just cut his losses, apologize like his life depended on it (which, to be fair, it probably did) and run away. But Merlin was done with thinking rationally.

"You heard me! A dollophead! Ugh, you make me so angry! Knocking me down, being mean about my ears, calling me an elf and not even having to say sorry at all! It makes me so mad I want to hit you!" It made Merlin's magic fizz up with the desire to hit him too.

"Feel free, but you should know that I could take you apart with one blow." And the prat just sat there, smirking at him.

"I could take you apart with less!" Merlin yelled. His magic was certainly ready.

The prince greeted this speech with an amused little snort. "By all means, please try. But you should know I've been trained to kill since birth."

Merlin scoffed at him. "You have not!"

"Self-defense, martial arts, weapons training everyday. . . . As I said, trained to kill since birth."

"Wow, and how long have you been training to be a prat?" The words flew off his lips before he could stop himself.

The prince looked affronted. "You can't address me like that."

Merlin grinned in anticipation. "I'm sorry. How long have you been training to be a prat, my lord?"

The prince jumped up and kicked his chair out of the way, so there was nothing between them. His hands were up, ready to take a swing. But then he spread them wide, as if in invitation.

"C'mon, then, Merlin! Come on!"

And Merlin did it. He took a swing straight at the prat's face. It was times like these that Merlin really regretted the illegality of magic.

Before he knew it, he was face-down on the ground with a heavy weight—a knee, Merlin guessed—pressing painfully into his spine. "Told you so," said the prince.

Merlin went limp, as if he had given up. The second the weight on top of him relaxed, he used the slightest bit of magic to help him roll to the side. He squirmed out from beneath the prince, then launched himself at the other boy, limbs flailing in a flurry of slaps and kicks, battle cry on his lips. This second attack didn't fare any better than the first, and Merlin was promptly restrained in a strange sort of hug, pulled tightly against the prince's body, arms firmly clamped to his sides. He was frogmarched to the door, but kicked at everything he could reach along the way. He got a sharp hit to the prince's shin with the heel of his shoe. He saw the LEGO train he had admired earlier and gave it a good boot. It flew across the floor, pieces spraying off as it went. Merlin didn't feel too bad about it. It wasn't like the turniphead didn't deserve it, or that it couldn't be rebuilt. Merlin would love to rebuild it himself, but doubted he'd get the chance.

The prince gave him one last vicious squeeze, threw him out the door, and kicked him in the back side, hard. "I'm not going to have you prosecuted for assaulting the prince and destruction of royal property, but only because I realize that I encouraged you in your idiocy. But if you ever touch me or my things again, I'll have you and your mother out of here so fast you'll have whiplash."

Merlin, who never did know when to quit, looked up and said, "Could you sound anymore like a stuck-up arse? And that hardly counts as destruction of property. It's LEGO. You just put it back together again. I'd be happy to do it for you."

The door slammed in his face.

"You could have just said no."

#

When Merlin scuttled back home, he paused in the Christmas catalogue room to examine the red-and-gold tree. The tree was so gaudily decorated he was kind of surprised it hadn't thrown itself out the window in protest. (With Merlin's magic being repressed and constantly fighting to escape, strange things like that had been known to happen. For one, his homework had a propensity to turn into fruit leather, which was at least an improvement over that one time it had burst into flames, taking his whole backpack with it. Mum couldn't say he had learned nothing about control: he hadn't accidentally combusted anything in months.)

After some contemplation, Merlin decided that the tree, despite being over-the-top, was actually rather exciting. He suddenly had a similar thought about a certain prat, and pushed it out of his head as fast as he could. Merlin remembered said prat threatening Mum's job, and decided there was nothing exciting about any of it. He longed to kick at the train tracks running under the tree, but decided not to. Mum would be super-sad if she lost her job, and Merlin couldn't risk it. But he did lean down and deliberately place one finger on the tracks, just to show he could. "Take that, prat!" he whispered. Maybe he could sneak back out here tonight and rebuild the whole track layout backwards. The turniphead might think he was losing his mind.

#

When Merlin returned to their new rooms, his mum gave him a kiss on the head and asked how things had gone with the prince.

Merlin shrugged his shoulders, thought a moment, and said, "It was more fun than I thought it would be." His mum looked at him searchingly, but then started talking about the prince. It had been a rough start, but she was sure the prince was lovely. Merlin didn't really listen, astonished by the truth of his statement. It had been fun to go and pester—er, apologize to—the prince, a lot of fun, if he were honest. Too bad he'd probably get sent to prison for the rest of his life if he ever did it again. That is, if the prince didn't reconsider and send him there now.

Surprisingly, Merlin's mum never did seem to hear about the disaster his apology had turned into. Merlin was positive that if she had, he'd never be able to see daylight again, ever. Or at least for a month. He had a sneaking feeling that wasn't the end of it, though. He suspected that Prince Turniphead was going to be an insufferable thorn in his side.


	3. In which Merlin is a thief

**Chapter Three** : In which Merlin is a thief and Arthur a prat

* * *

Much to his relief, Merlin didn't spend much time with the royal turniphead that first week. Unfortunately, this was because he had to wake up earlier than the sun to catch a bus to his new school. Mum helped him with breakfast and sent him on his way. Each day he asked directions from three or four of the ubiquitous security guards. It was a miracle that he wasn't stuck wandering the heavily-decorated halls forever, like some sort of ghost of Christmas past.

School was fine; he kept to himself and nobody bothered him much. He certainly wasn't going to let anybody know where he was living, or just who he was living with. Instead, he did his best to pretend to be a normal kid who lived in a normal flat with normal people, and who certainly wasn't in possession of any abnormal and highly illegal magical powers, thank you very much.

In the late afternoon he arrived back at the palace. The security guards were not quite as dumb as Merlin feared, and let him through without scanning him everyday. Once home, he loved to be with his mother. She spent her days with the prince, and sometimes the royal turniphead was still around when Merlin got home, ever ready with a condescending comment (or three). But in the evenings the prince spent time with his father, and Merlin had time alone with his mum. She usually just made him do his homework, but at least it was time he didn't have to share her with an ungrateful brat.

Merlin always had to go to bed before the prince came back from his evening with the king. It was horribly unfair to have to go to bed so early, but Mum said the prince got to stay up later because he was older and he didn't have to get up early to catch a bus. The best tutors came to him.

Of course the prat walked in during this part of the conversation. As soon as Mum left the room, he said, "You do know that princes are supposed to get the best of everything, right, Merlin? It's because princes are the best. And they certainly don't come with elf ears."

Some days it was really all Merlin could do to keep his magic from reaching out and coloring all of the dollophead's nether regions purple.

#

So things were mostly tolerable that first week. Sure, he had to share a bed with his mum like he was a baby, but it was kind of nice to know she was right there.

Then Saturday came.

Saturday, Merlin dreamed of finally sleeping as much as he wanted, playing a bit on his laptop (which was ancient and slow, but still let him play a few basic games) and then doing some Christmas activities with his mum. They were getting off to a late start this year because of the move, but there was still time. It was looking to be a great day.

Merlin had forgotten they had a new, irritating addition to their lives.

He didn't get to sleep as long as he wanted, because Mum set an obnoxiously loud alarm to help her get up and make sure Prince Prathead had his breakfast.

"You should come with us, sweetie," his mum said. "The food in the royal dining room is lovely, and you would be welcome to eat there, since you're my son."

Merlin couldn't see anything lovely about being anywhere close to the royal cabbagehead, and begged to be allowed to stay in their rooms and eat cold cereal.

"I promise I'll be good, Mum. I'll just eat and play some computer games. You won't have to worry about a thing."

"Oh, honey. It's my job to worry about you. Well, if you need anything, just go into the hallway and ask the guards out there to let me know. They know how to reach me on the radios." And with a kiss on his forehead, she left.

While Merlin crunched on his cereal, he pondered the fact that, for the first time, he was all alone in his new home. It'd be a stellar opportunity to go and investigate the prince's bedroom and see what cool things he had in there. He'd have to hurry, but maybe he could find something that wouldn't be missed if he took it with him for a few days. The dollophead would never know—and what the dollophead didn't know wouldn't hurt him, right?

Merlin lifted his cereal bowl up to his lips and slurped out his milk with gusto. Mum would have sent him to time-out before he'd managed to get the bowl back on the table. But Mum wasn't here, and Merlin was determined to enjoy every minute of it.

Merlin didn't bother to change out of his pyjamas before rushing the too-short distance to the prince's bedroom. He jerked on the door handle and—nothing happened. It was locked. Well, Merlin wasn't going to let a little thing like that stop him. He put his hand around the handle and gave a little push with his magic. Click. Despite the almost-constant fear of being discovered (his mother would despair if she ever realized he wasn't frightened into extreme vigilance one hundred percent of the time), it was pretty great to have magic.

Merlin pushed the door open and went inside. It was a rather messy room for someone who'd been blessed with house-keeping services since birth. Not that Merlin minded; it'd make it easier to sneak something out without it being noticed. But what should he take? He certainly didn't want to linger too long; someone could come by at any moment. He looked around at the various games, toys, and books, and finally selected a couple of superhero comics. They had a great enjoyment-to-ease-of-concealment ratio. Besides, he liked to daydream about being a superhero when he grew up. He already had plenty of magical superpowers; he just needed to take some notes on all the ins and outs of actually doing the job.

Before Merlin left he stopped to admire the LEGO train that he had kicked the other day. He looked at the instructions left open on the floor, and then back at the model. It had been mostly rebuilt, but Merlin could see that a few pieces had been placed in the wrong spots. This made it impossible to put the rest of the pieces where they ought to go. He couldn't help himself: he disassembled everything back to the point where the mistake had been made, then rebuilt it all correctly. He couldn't remember what step to stop on, but figured the prince was too much of a dunce to notice if it was at a slightly different stage of completion. It's not like the turniphead had been smart enough to do it right in the first place.

Worried about being discovered, Merlin grabbed his loot, relocked the prat's door, and hurried back to his room. He climbed under the blankets of the bed he shared with his mum, cuddled up with Kilgharrah, his stuffed golden dragon, and got to reading the pinched comic books.

He was right in the middle of the climactic battle between Beetle Boy and the Troll Queen when the door to the room burst open. Expecting his mum, he stuffed the comics under the blankets. But when he looked up, it was to the piercing blue eyes of a pompous prat.

"Are you . . . cuddling with a dragon?"

"Er . . . no?" And Merlin (hurriedly) stuffed the dragon under the covers with the contraband comics.

The prince looked around, then noticed the two sets of pillows on the bed. "And . . . do you sleep with your mummy? Like an infant? No wonder you're still here and haven't found your way back to Santa's workshop yet. I'm sure that's much too hard for a baby elf. And here I thought it was because you didn't want to leave the amazing-ness that is me."

Was that a hint of irony in the prat's voice? Highly doubtful. He probably peed on a golden toilet and had a full-size diamond statue of himself on display somewhere. He was likely followed around by a dozen people trained to tell him how perfect he was and to say, "Yes, oh fabulous one! Whatever you wish, magnificent Highness!" They would entertain his ridiculous fantasies, too. If he claimed one of them was an elf, that person would buy a reindeer and go looking for Santa Claus. It was nauseating.

Abruptly, Merlin hit on a thought more pertinent to his current situation.

"What are you doing? You can't be in here. Last I checked, your 37 rooms were down that other hall." Merlin tried to look aggressive, but figured the stuffed dragon hadn't helped his tough-boy image.

The prat smirked down at him. "I think you're forgetting, Elf-Boy, that this whole palace is mine and I can go wherever I like."

"Entitled, aren't we? But I think your daddy might disagree about all this being yours. Careful, or he'll think you're after his crown too. I'd sit with popcorn in the front row for that conversation."

The prince picked up one of Merlin's abandoned socks, balled it up, and shot it straight at Merlin's face. In retrospect, Merlin was surprised he'd lowered himself to the point of touching dirty socks, even for use as weaponry.

"You know, we haven't hung up anybody by their ears in a terribly long time. I'm sure the royal executioner would love the chance. It's not everyday you meet someone with such large ears and a mouth that doesn't know when to stop talking."

Merlin pulled a face and muttered something about delusional prats trying to bully the poor common man, but the prince carried on without giving him any notice.

"Your mother, despite giving birth to you, seems a decent sort. She invited me to 'get ready for Christmas' with you. And since I had no idea what that could mean, I decided to come investigate. When it proves dreadfully dull, as I'm sure it will, I'll go back to my own room, like always."

The prince looked less than thrilled by that prospect. It made Merlin wonder what he did in his room by himself all the time.

"So, Elf-Boy, think you can stop cuddling your lovey in your mummy's bed and show me what this getting-ready-for-Christmas lark is all about?"

Well crap. This day just took a turn for the worse. Merlin pursed his lips.

"To be clear, this 'Elf-Boy' thing is getting old. You do know I have an actual name, right?"

"Just like I have a proper form of address, and yet you've never once used it."

"Well, it's not my fault your 'proper form of address' is so pretentious I'd rather vomit toads than have it come out of my mouth. But I'm sure my mouth could learn how to say 'Arthur' instead of 'Cabbagehead', if yours could learn to say 'Merlin' instead of 'Elf-Boy'. Just sayin'."

Arthur's eyes squinted into a steely glare. "Or . . . you could treat me with the respect I deserve before I throw you in the dungeon."

"Yeah, I'd give you some sort of speech about respect being earned, not given, but instead I'll just say that if you throw me in those non-existent dungeons of yours, you won't be able to have any of the Christmas cookies we're going to make today. I promise you they're totally worth a little bit of disrespect, Arthur."

"Wait—did you say you're making your own Christmas cookies?" The prince—Arthur—raised his eyebrows incredulously. "And not just get them from the kitchen or a store or something?"

"You sound like you've never heard of such a thing before." Merlin was dubious; he knew the life of a prince was different from that of a nanny's son. But baking cookies was an indispensable part of Christmas, wasn't it?

Arthur's cheeks turned pink and he didn't quite look Merlin in the eye when he said, "I've seen people doing it in movies, and sometimes read about it in books, I think. But I thought that was mostly for show."

Merlin was aghast. "Seriously? You've never had homemade Christmas cookies? Or made them? What happened to 'I'm the most amazing person to ever walk the planet and I have the best of everything'?' How can you have had the best of everything and never had the best of all cookies?"

Arthur smirked. "I hardly think something you made could be the best of anything."

Merlin bristled at the insult. "Could you be any more of a prat?"

Arthur grinned devilishly. "I could try! And that's Prince Prat to you!" He launched himself at Merlin, who tried to use the blankets as a shield between them, in case the pratliness was contagious. This proved less than effective, and Merlin quickly found himself squashed in an awkward pile of blankets, comic books, stuffed dragon and prat.

The ruckus they were making brought Merlin's mum into the tiny room. "What on earth is going on in here?"

Arthur looked up from where he was sitting on Merlin. "Oh, sorry Miss Hunith. I was just trying to get this lazy-bones out of bed for the day. Can you believe he's still in his pyjamas?" The prince put on his most angelic expression. Merlin had to admit he was good. He certainly knew how to spin a story in his favor. Now it was time for Merlin to do the same.

"I've been up! I've done lots of things today. I had breakfast, and I went—" Merlin snapped his mouth shut before he could incriminate himself. He didn't think either Mum or Arthur would appreciate how he had broken into the prince's bedroom and "borrowed" a few items.

"And where is it that you went, Merlin?" The prince had such a smug look on his face Merlin feared he'd been caught, though he wasn't sure how it could be possible.

"To the loo. Yeah, that's it. I went to the loo!"

"Oh, Merlin, your industry never ceases to amaze." His mother gave him a fond smile, but shook her head in maternal despair. Sometimes she looked at him like he was going to grow up to be a delinquent or something. But Merlin figured that no matter what else happened, he'd have his career as a superhero to fall back on. She didn't have anything to worry about.

Merlin shot his mother a pointed look and said, "Well, if you both would kindly leave the room, I could dress and become a productive member of society, as you so obviously want."

His mum left right away; he could hear her move out to the kitchenette to pull out baking supplies. But Arthur stayed put, his face scrunched up a bit in confusion. "Wait. This really is your room? I thought this was your mum's bed?"

Merlin grimaced. "Well, as I said, we aren't all born with a whole wing of a palace set aside for our personal use."

"So—you both share this room that's about the size of a cupboard? You sleep in the same bed?" Arthur looked adorably confused, a thought that rather alarmed Merlin. Nothing about that cabbagehead should ever be adorable.

"Hey, it's a comfy bed. Much nicer than any I've had before. And a big step up from a sleeping bag on the floor, like at Mum's last assignment."

"Don't you ever wish you had your own space, though? A place where you could look at your dirty magazines in privacy?"

"Well, yes, but—wait, what? What dirty magazines? I don't have any. . . . What are you talking about?"

Arthur spoke to him slowly, as if he were a child. "You know. Your dirty magazines. The ones you're hiding underneath the blankets because you don't want anyone to see them."

He continued, muttering just loudly enough for Merlin to hear, "Though why you'd want to mess up your mother's sheets, I couldn't guess."

Merlin blushed bright red. The tips of his ears felt like they were burning. "Ew, no! That's beyond gross! Those aren't dirty magazines, you pervert. They're just—" How on earth was he going to get out of this without incriminating himself? Arthur was going to see those comic books and know he'd . . . er, borrowed . . . them. Think, think, why couldn't he think?

But before he could come up with a plan, Arthur plunged his arm under the covers and pulled out the two comic books. He looked as if he'd just hatched a cat from a chicken's egg.

"Why on earth would you be hiding these? The _Heroes of Albion_ comics are great! I've got all of them, of course—"

Of course, Merlin thought. Wouldn't expect anything else.

"—and if you haven't read them all you could come borrow mine. If you think you could manage not to destroy them. It's not like I can read more than one at a time. Then we could talk about them."

Arthur looked thoughtful for a moment, then added, "But you would probably destroy them."

Merlin felt a guilty feeling rise through his body. Was the prince actually being . . . nice?

"But you said that if I touched any of your things, Mum would lose her job!" Maybe justified anger would chase away the guilt that was more uncomfortable by the second.

"Yes, but you were being an idiot then. Besides, I like your mum. She seems to genuinely want to do things with me. She doesn't ignore my presence, then brag to her friends that since she's taking care of royalty, a rich and handsome lord was bound to notice her. It's not coincidence that most of my old nannies are officially ladies now."

Merlin stroked his chin, pretending to ponder this. "I . . . see. . . . So you'll tolerate me for my mother's sake?"

"Well, tolerate is a strong word. But I'll try not to feed you to my hunting dogs at the first opportunity."

"Might be a fate better than living here with you."

At that, Arthur grabbed one of the comic books, rolled it up, and whacked Merlin over the head.

"Hey!" Merlin squawked. "That's assault! Now let's see who gets arrested!"

"Oh hush. I think we've already established no one is getting arrested for any of this idiocy. And since that's the case, it frees me up to do this."

Arthur grabbed at Merlin and yanked him off the bed, blankets and all. Merlin bit his tongue when he hit the floor and spluttered from the shock of it. As the prince stepped over to the door, he said, "You might want to clean that before your mum comes back in here. Now get dressed!" He shut the door with a loud click.

"Can you believe him?" Merlin asked Kilgharrah, who had landed by Merlin's left ear. The dragon looked back at him impassively, as if the affairs of mere mortals were far beneath him. They probably were. Merlin snorted. "If you're not going to be any help, I'll take care of it myself." And while Merlin dressed and remade the bed, he was hard at work thinking of ways to repay the prince for the sheer pratliness of his existence.


	4. In which cookies are made

Chapter Four: In which cookies are made and Mum is a traitor

* * *

Once Merlin arrived in the kitchen ready for baking, it became clear that there wasn't enough room for the three of them to fit. Mum decided it'd be good if the boys worked on making the cookie dough together while she took care of some other chores.

Arthur had gone to change his clothes from his ubiquitous suit-and-tie into something that wouldn't be destroyed by a bit of egg (Merlin was fully planning on taking advantage of that later). This gave Merlin the opportunity to whine a bit without being mocked for it. "But Muuuum, we always make our Christmas cookies together. It's tradition." It had absolutely nothing to do with being stuck in close quarters with that prat.

"There just isn't room for all three of us in the kitchen, sweetie. Plus, I think this'll be a good bonding experience for you two. You have to admit that you could do with a little intervention. I'll just be at the table." The table didn't fit in the kitchen, but was placed out in a corner of the living room.

The prince came back into the kitchen, looking surprisingly normal in jeans, a Camelot U. T-shirt, and sneakers. Merlin thought back a bit and realized this was the first time he'd seen the prince without a tie. He wondered if Arthur had much choice in what he got to wear. Who in their right mind would wear a suit to his daily breakfast? Maybe for Easter brunch or something, but geez. He almost felt the tiniest smidge of pity, but stamped it down hard. Time to get started on the cookies. The sooner they finished, the sooner the prince could go back to his own rooms. Hopefully. God. What if he wanted to stay with them all day?

"So, Arthur—" Merlin said, as he went to the sink to wash his hands.

"'Your Highness'," his mother corrected from the doorway. She had been sorting all sorts of papers, bills, advertisements, and such, but popped her head into the room to check on them.

"No, Mum, I'm pretty sure his name is Arthur." His mum shot a quick look over at Arthur, who shrugged and lifted his eye brows in a "what can you do?" kind of look. Mum gave him a slight nod, and went to sit at the paper-strewn table to get some work done.

"Arthur," Merlin said again from the sink where he was scrubbing his hands, "you need to make sure you wash your hands extremely well. We wouldn't want any princely cooties getting into the cookie dough. Your pratliness is probably contagious."

"As is your idiocy, Merlin, especially if you think I don't know how to wash my hands. You'd better be using lots of soap over there."

Merlin was, in fact, using lots of soap, which made it easy to flick some bubbles over at Arthur's head. Arthur marched straight over to the sink, grabbed both of Merlin's wet wrists in one of his hands, then used the other to scoop out the remaining bubbles from the sink and slather them all across Merlin's face. Merlin would have growled in protest, but his mum was sitting just around the corner and he didn't fancy facing her wrath. Besides, he was too busy clamping his eyes and mouth shut to say anything at all.

"I would think it important to keep a clean face too, wouldn't you, Merlin? You know what they say: "Clean face, clean . . . nose."

"Er, what?" sputtered Merlin, who had managed to acquire a towel. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. And you think I'm the idiot?"

"Wait, are you disparaging the wisdom of the people?"

"No, I'm disparaging the idiocy of a prince," said Merlin.

He realized they were straying from their purpose and his chances of prat-free time today were steadily diminishing. He interrupted Arthur's protests with a terse, "Let's get on with it."

Merlin gathered the ingredients on the counter while Arthur washed his hands. Then they measured and added the ingredients. Arthur was shockingly clueless about it all. He didn't know a teaspoon from a cup, and tried to use the tartar sauce from the fridge when the recipe called for cream of tartar.

"What are you doing?" Merlin snapped, as he scooped out the offending condiment. "We're not making fish sticks."

Arthur looked confused. He held up the jar of sauce and said, "I was just adding the creamy tartar, like the recipe said."

Merlin huffed. "Not 'creamy tartar', _your Highness_." His inflection made it sound more like 'you moron'. "Cream of tartar. It's the powder over in that tiny jar."

"It's not even a cream at all." Arthur looked affronted.

"Nope."

"That's ridiculous. When I'm king I'm going to make them switch the name to 'powder of tartar'. I'm certain I could make it happen under the premise that it's false advertising or something."

"It looks like Camelot's future is in great hands," Merlin muttered. Rolling his eyes, he got back to work.

#

The cookie-making went by with minimal amounts of foolishness after that. Merlin couldn't resist tossing a bit of flour at the prince, who made sure to return the favor, but they were both aware of Merlin's mum sitting just out of sight and didn't let things get too out of control. Merlin didn't want to face his mother's wrath; Arthur probably just didn't want her know that he was in any way less than a perfect pompous prince.

They rolled out the dough and used cookie cutters to make cookies with different shapes. Arthur made it his mission to cut out as many cookies as possible at one time, so he didn't have to re-roll the dough over and over again. Merlin would have mocked him for his anal-retentiveness, but he was too busy trying to cut his cookies into naughty shapes and sneaking bits of cookie dough to eat.

"Merlin!" It was Arthur's most imperious and pompous voice. Merlin hated it with a passion. "It says right here in the recipe 'to minimize the risk of salmonella poisoning, do not eat the raw cookie dough'. So stop it!"

"I didn't realize you cared, your Highness." And Merlin popped another wad of dough into his mouth. "It's good," he said with his mouth obnoxiously full of cookie dough. "You should try it."

"My God, you're a heathen. Remind me to never let you out into the rest of the palace."

Merlin muttered to himself, "If everyone out there is as pompous and pratty as you, you'd be doing me a favor." But Arthur steadfastly ignored him and went back to the task of cutting out shapes.

Once the cookies were baking, Merlin's mum called them out to the table to make Christmas cards. This was not one of Merlin's favorite traditions, but every year she made him pick at least three people to send greetings to. They would cut pictures out of old Christmas cards or catalogs, paste them onto colored paper, and write their own messages. Mum said that it gave a personal touch to their Christmas greetings, but Merlin just thought they did it this way because it was cheaper than buying cards at the store.

Merlin didn't have that many people he wanted to send cards to. He had no family apart from Mum (and apparently Uncle Gaius, but since Merlin had no memories of him from before last week, he hardly counted). They tended not to stay in one place too long. Merlin guessed that his mother didn't want anyone suspecting that there was something a bit odd about him. Back when he was little he had had some serious control problems. Like that time when he was five and had just figured out how funny flatulence was. For a week, every time he passed someone in the neighborhood, there would be a loud farting noise behind them, followed by a smell highly reminiscent of cow poo. Merlin didn't think he purposely meant to do it. At least that's what he told his mum. He'd always got in a lot less trouble if he let her think that his mishaps were accidental.

He usually sent a Christmas card to Will, his best friend from when Mum was working in the little village of Ealdor, and to Freya, a sweet neighbor girl from some village or other they had lived in before Ealdor. It was really hard for Merlin to keep track of all the places they'd lived.

Thinking about how they'd moved around to protect him made him wonder again about why they'd moved to the palace. He'd asked his mum why she would take a job in the very heart of the magic-hating king's home. He thought it odd after the over-abundance of caution she'd shown through the rest of his life. She'd been vague, saying things like "it's a fantastic opportunity" and "no one would ever suspect you here" and "I have a good feeling about it". Merlin had come to accept that her intuition was pretty much never wrong, and that had been that.

He usually made his third Christmas card for his mother because he knew it made her happy. And she would always make one for him. He'd kept them all, hidden away in one of his few books because he really didn't want his mum to know. He wasn't a baby or anything; he just liked the reminders that no matter how many other kids his mum took care of, she still loved him best. He knew this, of course, but it's still nice to have concrete proof.

"Tell me, Arthur," Merlin said. Mum glared at him for the casual use of the prince's name, but Merlin refused to be cowed. "Who are you going to make your cards for?"

Arthur looked up from where he was gluing a Christmas tree cut from an old card onto a piece of construction paper. He had been frowning at the tree in concentration, adjusting it by tiny increments, trying to get it perfectly centered.

"Um . . . nobody." He bit his lips a little and wrinkled his brow. "I don't know anyone who would appreciate one. My father would think it an atrocious waste of time and want to give me extra homework to keep me too busy for such silliness. Morgana would just laugh and tease me relentlessly about being a kindergarten girl."

"Who's Morgana?" The name sounded familiar, but Merlin couldn't remember how. His mum had probably mentioned it when she was trying to prepare him for life in the palace. But despite her best efforts, he only knew Arthur and Uncle Gaius, if you didn't count the security guards that were always outside in the main hall, reluctantly ready to give him directions when needed.

Arthur curled his lip up contemptuously at him. "Morgana's my half-sister. You really are pretty clueless, aren't you? She's always been in the media just as much as me. More, really, because it was such a scandal and all."

"What scandal? And—you think I paid attention to you in the media? Why would I, when there are actual interesting things in the world. . . ?"

"That's enough, Merlin!" his mother snapped. Her icy tone indicated he had clearly reached the limits of the disrespect she would tolerate from him.

But Arthur interrupted the lecture she was about to start by saying, "It's alright, Miss Hunith. Not everyone is capable of acting like a civilized human being. Don't worry, I'm sure it has absolutely nothing to do with your excellent parenting skills."

Then he smiled and winked at her.

Merlin wasn't sure if he'd ever seen his mum so discomfited before. She clearly didn't know what to say, but then bestowed the both of them with an impish smile and said, "That's very . . . kind . . . of you, your Highness. But if Merlin here ever crosses too many lines, I find that he's very ticklish round the middle. Though you might want to sit on him first."

"Mum! No!" Merlin cried, aghast.

"Oh, don't worry yourself, sweetie. I'm sure his Highness is such a 'civilized human being' that he would never resort to anything as crude as tickling, except in the most dire of circumstances. I just wanted him to know he had options in times of great duress. You have to admit, Merlin, those tend to happen a lot when you're around."

Arthur chimed in. "I told you I liked your mother. She's a very wise lady." And he reached over and rubbed his knuckles across Merlin's head, which caused a great deal of squawking. But then the timer on one of the batches of cookies rang, and Merlin used it as his excuse to make a quick getaway.

The rest of the day went by in a fairly happy blur. They finished their cards (Merlin never did find out who Arthur was going to give his to), decorated the cookies ("Your reindeer looks like a pile of horse crap, _Mer_ lin" . . . "At least it will taste better than the crap that comes out of your mouth, Arthur"), and strung popcorn and cranberries onto long stands of thread to decorate the kitchen and living room. Mum said they didn't need a Christmas tree of their own this year, because why spend the money when there was such a lovely one just out the door in the prince's sitting room? And where would they find room to put one up? Merlin had pouted about this for awhile, because the idea of sharing anything as important as a Christmas tree with that turniphead seemed intolerable. Though . . . Merlin had to admit that he was slowly warming up to Arthur. Their day together hadn't been complete torture. Besides, the tree in the Christmas catalogue room was amazing. And if they saved enough money, maybe Mum would get him a new computer someday. There were a lot of games he'd love to play, but his old laptop just couldn't run them.

Before Arthur left for dinner with the king, the three of them snacked on cookies and hot cocoa. Merlin liked to dip his cookies in the cocoa, which left behind clumps of icing and sprinkles floating in his mug. Arthur made some snarky comments about his atrocious manners and how he could never invite Merlin to a formal dinner of any kind. Merlin wasn't offended; he felt surprisingly content despite having spent most of the day in the prince's dubious company. For his part, Arthur agreed that the homemade cookies were uncommonly good, almost worth the price of having to spend the day with Merlin. Merlin counted that as a victory.


	5. In which Merlin is disappointed

Chapter 5: In which Merlin is disappointed

* * *

After that Saturday, things changed. Arthur spent large amounts of time in the tiny governess's suite with Merlin and his mum. He was still a prat who drove Merlin crazy, but Merlin would dish it back. He was startled to find that he looked forward to the prince's visits. He wasn't going to admit it, though, even if faced with tickle torture or death by noogies.

As Merlin's tolerance for Arthur grew, so did the guilt he felt for snitching the comic books. He couldn't feel completely wretched about it, though. He noticed that no matter how much time Arthur spent in the governess's suite, there were never any invitations to spend time in Arthur's room. He tried to drop hints that he'd love to run the model train, try out the computer, or challenge Arthur to a video game, but Arthur was either cruel or oblivious. Probably both.

A few days after making cookies together, Merlin decided to try again. The two of them were watching the weather forecast ("Don't you dare change the channel, prat! I need to know what clothes to wear to school tomorrow!") when Merlin said, "So . . . Arthur. Do you think we could get out your train and run it on the tracks in the Christmas catalogue room? I'd love to see it!"

Arthur raised an eyebrow at him. "Did you seriously just call it a Christmas catalogue room?"

Merlin blushed, but pressed ahead. "That's what it looks like, Arthur. Nothing wrong with naming things for what they look like: you're a turniphead, it's a Christmas catalogue room."

"In that case, you're a large-eared idiotic baby elf. Did you consider that maybe that room isn't from a catalogue, but straight out of Santa's workshop? Just waiting for lost little baby elf Merlin." Arthur patted him on the shoulder, as if comforting a lost child.

Merlin squirmed away from Arthur's hand, saying, "I know that can't be true. I'm fairly sure there are actual toys in Santa's workshop, not just lengths of abandoned track longing for a train."

"You're the elf; you would know."

"If I were an elf, I'd make sure I had a lot more toys. So, what do you say? Can we take the train for a test run?" Merlin put on his best puppy-dog eyes. It often worked with Mum; it couldn't hurt to try it on Arthur.

"The last time I let you get close to that train, you destroyed it. What makes you think I'd ever let you get near it again?" Well, dang it. Arthur seemed immune to the puppy-dog eyes.

"Oh, come on. 'Destroyed' is such a strong word. I merely gave you the opportunity to use your amazing building skills and have a little bit of fun."

Arthur snorted at that. "That's one way to put it. Or we could just say that the whole thing was a gigantic headache."

"Oh, is Prince Perfect incapable of assembling a child's toy?"

Arthur pushed him, causing him to flop sideways on the sofa. "Oh, hush. That set is for teenagers. But if you must know, Merlin, it's the weirdest thing. I was having some trouble getting that train you destroyed put back together—"

"You? Have trouble? Never!" Merlin let his mouth drop open in his best imitation of horrified astonishment.

"I know, it's hard to believe. Anyway, idiot, I'm trying to tell you something. I was having a heck of a time, but then I went to try again a different day, and I swear the pieces were all put together differently. After that it was easy and I could move right on to the next steps. It was very strange."

Merlin beamed at him. "Maybe there's an elf that likes to come help all the incompetent boys and girls. Maybe if you left out a few pieces of leather you'd have some new shoes by morning."

Arthur raised an eyebrow pointedly at him. "You think it might be an elf like you, Merlin?"

Merlin spluttered and coughed, terrified that he'd been caught out.

But then Arthur continued, "I'd almost think it was you, but there's no way you could have gotten into my room. Nor would you have managed to put that train back together. You're not clever enough, are you, Elf-Boy?"

Merlin was so relieved at this conclusion that he let both the insult and the annoying nickname wash right over him. "Maybe I did do it. Maybe I'm a magical superhero in disguise."

Arthur gave him a probing look from top to bottom and said, "Yeah, I'm going to go with 'no'. Maybe it was a housekeeper."

Merlin snickered a little. For all his arrogance, the prince was easy to fool. "Don't say I never told you!"

"Whatever, Idiot."

"Turniphead."

"Lunatic."

"Dollophead."

"Peasant."

"Clotpole."

"That's not even a word."

"Is too."

"Is not."

"Is too."

"And what does it mean, pray tell?"

"In two words?"

"Yes."

"Uh . . . Prince Arthur."

At which point the clotpole grabbed a large cushion off the seat of the couch and whacked Merlin so hard he was knocked onto the floor. He popped up and managed to acquire his own couch cushion, but Arthur tossed his and headed for the door.

"I'd love to stay, but it's time for me to go to dinner. Wouldn't do to be late for the king!"

Merlin yelled, "Get back here and fight, you coward!" But the prince was gone. Belatedly, Merlin realized he still hadn't been granted permission to use any of his things. It might be time to come up with a better make-the-prat-share-his-crap strategy. He had offered to share his comic books, so there had to be hope for the train and the computer too, right? Merlin hadn't asked to borrow any of the comics yet, because he didn't want to draw attention to his thievery. Perhaps he should return the stolen comics and then ask to borrow some different issues. Maybe if he treated the comics well, Arthur would see he could be responsible and non-destructive. Merlin shook his head. And maybe Merlin truly was an elf, reindeer really did fly, and Arthur would stop being a prat someday.


	6. In which Merlin receives an invitation

**Chapter Six** : In which Merlin receives an unwanted invitation

* * *

Notes: This is my first story. I'd love it if you left a comment letting me know what you think. Thanks for reading!

* * *

It was the middle of Merlin's second week at the palace, the week before Christmas. He had returned from school to find Arthur visiting, as per usual. But then something unusual happened: there was a knock on the door that lead into the governess's suite.

Arthur was lounging on the sofa, flipping through channels on the telly, while Merlin sat at the table scowling down at his homework. Mum would never let him kick Arthur out, and no one ever seemed to care if the noise from Arthur's shows made it hard for Merlin to concentrate. He had tried complaining, but Mum just went on about how his Highness was a poor lonely angel, and it was good that he could come and spend time with them. As for the 'poor lonely angel', he just told Merlin that he really needed to get used to working through distraction; he'd heard that it can get rather loud for all the peons stuck working in cubicle-land. Merlin wasn't entirely sure what cubicle-land was, but recognized the prat's condescension for what it was.

Whenever Arthur acted overly arrogant and condescending, Merlin indulged in superhero fantasies wherein he rescued Arthur from his own stupidity. In the fantasies, Merlin would be rewarded by the king, lauded as the saviour of the royal family, and beloved by both schoolchildren and eligible young ladies all across the land.

Merlin had a harder time thinking of what sort of stupid thing Arthur would do. Maybe he'd be one of those people who almost die trying to take photographs of themselves. Perhaps he'd fall into the lion's pen at the zoo or step backwards over a cliff. Maybe he'd be so arrogant that he'd expect the laws of physics to bend over backwards for him.

Unfortunately, real-life Arthur would never be that stupid. This was good for Camelot, but bad for Merlin's hopes of a dramatic rescue with maximum princely embarrassment.

Nor could Merlin take credit for any good magical deed unless he wanted to spend the rest of his life in prison. Merlin didn't like to think about the injustice of it; it tended to make him sad, or mad. In the fantasies he kept closest to his heart, he convinced the world of the inherent goodness and beauty of magic, causing it to be accepted, even loved.

The fact that sorcerers were no longer executed didn't signal a change in the attitude towards magic. The king and his council had merely decided that capital punishment was immoral, whether for magicians or murderers. The official statement said that just because criminals committed terrible deeds, the government shouldn't stoop to equal levels of depravity. Merlin paid little attention to government decrees, but that one had made an impact, being both a relief and a great insult. If only there were a way to show the king just how not-depraved he was, thank you very much. But that would have to remain in the realm of fantasy, too.

There was louder knocking on the door, startling Merlin out of his daydreams. He'd forgotten that there was someone at the door. He looked at it, befuddled. No one had ever come to visit them before, if you didn't count the great turniphead of a prince who just waltzed right in whenever he pleased, no knocking to speak of ("Why should I knock? We've already agreed that the whole palace belongs to me" . . . "No, I thought we agreed that you were hallucinating"). The guards in the main hallway always called if anyone wished to speak to Mum. As for Merlin, there was no reason for anyone to ever come and visit him.

Arthur looked up from the sofa with his right eyebrow raised. "You going to get that, Elf-Boy? I hear Santa's a busy man and doesn't like to be kept waiting."

"Santa?" Merlin stared blankly at Arthur.

"The door, Merlin!"

"Oh, right."

He got up and answered the door. Arthur was looking entirely too smug about something, but Merlin would worry about that later. When he opened the door, one of the palace staff stood there, dressed in the frilly uniform that indicated he was in immediate service to the royal family. Merlin felt sorry for the royal staff whenever he saw them: wearing a getup like that and constantly dealing with the pratliness of royalty must be a special kind of torture.

The man at the door didn't seem to mind, though. He appeared pleased with things as he swept a glittering red envelope towards Merlin with an elaborate flourish.

He announced, "Mr Emrys, the Princess Morgana has asked me to deliver this to you." He bowed low, the feathers on his hat waggling back and forth, as he waited for Merlin to take the envelope from his outstretched arms. Merlin stared, befuddled, wondering how that ridiculous hat didn't slide right off his head.

There was movement behind Merlin, and then Arthur appeared, reaching out to take the proffered envelope. "Ah, George, thank you for coming. You'll have to excuse Merlin here; he can be a bit of an idiot sometimes. I'm still not convinced he wasn't raised in a reindeer barn."

Merlin stamped hard on Arthur's foot. George looked appalled. The envelope fell to the floor. Arthur grabbed Merlin around his neck, pulled him close, and gave him a noogie. Merlin squirmed for all he was worth, but Arthur grabbed both his arms in one of his and kept rubbing firmly on his head. Merlin wanted to bite the prince to make him let go, but figured that might be a step too far, especially in front of witnesses. He tried kicking instead, but Arthur had him in an awkward position. His face was jammed into Arthur's torso, so he couldn't even voice his protests.

"See, he has much to learn about how civilized people conduct their affairs."

George said, "As you say, sire," in a rather strangled voice.

"Thank you for your delivery, George. You may go." Arthur reverted back to his pompous voice, which was startlingly at odds with the way he was tickling Merlin's side.

Merlin managed to squirm loose, shrieking, "Let me go, you prat!" He saw one last look of pure shock on George's face before he accidentally kicked the door closed while flailing around, trying to escape.

Arthur chuckled while he attacked. "I believe it was your very own dear mother who suggested a bit of tickling might do you good." Merlin shrieked and huffed and laughed and yelled. He wondered what was taking his mum so long to get home. She would put a stop to this, right? Finally, in desperation, Merlin closed his eyes (to cover up any tell-tale glow) and magicked himself a bit more slippery. He didn't know any spells, but could sometimes just wish for something and it would happen, to some extent at least. He ducked out of Arthur's grasp, grabbed the invitation from where it had been dropped on the floor, and fled to the bathroom. He slammed the door, turned the lock, and collapsed to the floor in a panting heap.

He expected the prat to follow, but no one came. After a moment he heard someone turn off the telly and rummage through some things. A cheerful voice called, "See you later, Elf-Boy!" Then a door closed with a thump.

It must have been time for Arthur to go see his father. Thank God. Merlin turned his attention to the red, glitter-covered envelope. What would the Princess Morgana possibly have to send to him?

Not caring that he was sitting on the cold tiles of the tiny bathroom, he ripped open the envelope. Shiny confetti fell out, silver snowflakes, evergreen trees, candy canes, and golden stars. Merlin pulled out a delicate piece of parchment. Inside a border of holly leaves and red berries, ornate writing proclaimed:

 _"Her Royal Highness, the Princess Morgana Pendragon, cordially invites you to the annual Camelot Palace Youth Christmas Party. This year's party will be held Saturday, December 17, at 6:00 pm in the West Parlour. Formal dress required. Please RSVP to the palace steward by December 15."_

Merlin reread the invitation, bemused. How had he gotten invited to a party hosted by the princess? He had no business attending an event like that. He wouldn't know anybody except for Arthur, and he doubted the prince would want him to tag along. He'd probably pretend to not even know him, the scrawny little poor boy from nowhere who was still sharing a bed with his mum. Besides, Merlin had no formal clothes to wear. He really didn't think his worn out button-up shirt was going to cut it. Nor did he have any idea about how to interact with the kinds of hoity-toity people who were likely to be invited to such an event.

He left the bathroom and returned to his homework, leaving the party invitation abandoned on the table, where it was quickly subsumed into a pile of bills, mail, and miscellaneous papers. He had no intention of going, and that was the end of that.

#

However, that was apparently not the end of that. The next afternoon when Merlin got home from school, his mum and Arthur were in the living room, Mum at the table and Arthur in his usual spot sprawled on the sofa. As soon as Merlin walked in to kiss his mum on the cheek, Arthur opened his ever-irritating mouth.

"So, Merlin, have you replied to Morgana yet? She does hate to be kept waiting."

Merlin groaned. Of course Arthur would know about the invitation; he was probably the reason Merlin had been invited in the first place, though heaven only knew why. Maybe Arthur was the kind of person who liked to surround himself with inferiors to help make him look better. It's not like he wanted Merlin to go for his own merits. He'd made it abundantly clear he only saw Merlin as an idiot with enormous ears.

Merlin adopted his sarcastic voice, a weapon often necessary when dealing with Arthur. "Why, hello, your Highness! How are you doing this fine afternoon? Me? I'm quite well, thanks for asking!" Merlin flashed his most charming smile at him. Then he snagged some cookies from the kitchen and sat next to his mum.

Mum, for one, was not won over by Merlin's faux-attempt at politeness. "What is this, Merlin? Why do you need to reply to the princess? And how many times must I tell you it's rude to ignore questions directed at you?"

Merlin should have known that Mum would latch on to this talk of the princess like a dog to a bone. She hadn't been shy about voicing her admiration for Princess Morgana, claiming she was 'such a lovely girl', ever so considerate and caring, respectful of all those around her (unlike a certain young man she happened to know well).

Merlin sighed. "It's nothing, really, Mum. I got an invitation to a Christmas party that the princess is hosting, but I don't plan on going, so no reply necessary."

"Merlin! You can't tell the princess no! And certainly not by refusing to respond!" Mum looked nauseated at the thought.

"Muuuum. . . . I'm not exactly telling her no. I'm just skipping an event she probably prefers I not attend. Why would she want me there? She doesn't even know me."

His mum glared at him, her face refusing even the slightest hint of sympathy.

Merlin tried a different tack. "Besides, you are the one who is always telling me I have no manners. You can't possibly want to send me out to embarrass you!"

Mum slapped him gently on his arm. "Oh, you silly goose. It's not that you don't have any manners; it's just that you refuse to use them. I'm sure the princess's party will be a great opportunity for you to pull your manners out from wherever you hide them and use them for a change. I know you can do it, sweetie."

Merlin could feel the situation falling rapidly out of control. He launched one last, desperate attempt to convince his mum that he didn't belong anywhere near a royal gathering. "But the invitation said I would need formal clothes, and you know I don't have any. The clothes Arthur wears to a casual breakfast are fancier than anything I have."

Merlin's mum looked pensive, and he could almost see the gears in her brain whirring furiously. Merlin knew she still hadn't saved up enough money to buy him a tux, though he feared that it would happen eventually. People who lived in the palace seemed to have a penchant for dressing up. Merlin was just about to suggest that he could attend next year, assuming he was invited, when the turniphead had to ruin everything by speaking up.

"Actually, Miss Hunith, I have some clothes Merlin could borrow, if you'd like. It's no bother. It'd be a pity for him to miss the party for such a trivial reason." Arthur sounded entirely too pleased with himself.

"Oh, I wouldn't want you to go to any trouble or expense, your Highness." Mum sounded reluctant, but Merlin knew it was an act. She would love it if he dressed up like a china doll and stood around exchanging pleasantries with a bunch of snobs.

Arthur smiled. Merlin swore it was a devious, wicked sort of smile, but he doubted his mum would agree. "Oh, they're just some of my old things that I outgrew. The palace has a tailor that I can send up to make any necessary adjustments. It won't be a problem." The smile grew till it was blinding.

Oh, no. This was in no way good.

Merlin fumed. "You dollophead! You told me just this week that you could never take me anywhere formal! Something about my atrocious manners . . . ?"

But no one listened to him. Mum just laughed delightedly.

"Why thank you, your Highness! You are too kind. That would be most helpful. It'd be a shame for Merlin to miss out." She flashed a pleased smile at the prince, and then winked at him.

Merlin was irate. "I am standing right here, you know. And did anyone even think to ask if I wanted to go? Or were the two of you going to plan out the rest of my life without giving me any say-so?"

Arthur smirked at him, but Mum was a bit more apologetic. "You know I just want the best for you, honey. And this will be a great opportunity to get to know other young people. Don't think I haven't noticed how you're cooped up alone in here so often."

Merlin muttered, "I think you're confusing me for Arthur," but Mum continued without hesitation, "Now tell Prince Arthur thank you for the use of a formal outfit, and then go reply to the invitation immediately."

Merlin glared at Arthur, doing his best to make his eyes convey 'this is all your fault and I hate you'.

Instead he said, "Thank you for your interference, your Highness," and fled to the bedroom.


	7. In which Arthur has his revenge

Chapter Seven: In which Arthur has his revenge

* * *

The morning of the Christmas party Merlin woke in a foul mood. It wasn't that he was shy or anything. It's just that, despite what certain prats might think, he had no desire to make an idiot of himself in front of a bunch of strangers. If the party guests were anything like Arthur, Merlin was in for a painful time. It was hard enough to keep one prat in line. (If he were honest, he didn't think he was even doing a good job of that.) The chances he'd be able to manage more than one arrogant entitled brat were about nil.

In the mid-afternoon, there was a knock on the door. Merlin had no desire to answer it; the last time had been a disaster. But Mum was yelling at him to hurry before whoever it was gave up and went away. He cracked open the door to see George, standing stiffly and holding a garment bag. This must be Arthur's promised delivery of formal clothes. He had sent his personal tailor to take Merlin's measurements a few days ago—just to make sure the clothes didn't require any alterations, he'd said. Mum seemed relieved that no one was making Merlin an outfit from scratch. He supposed she'd feel obligated to pay for it. Merlin would have thought that preferable, himself: then maybe he could have had some input into what the outfit looked like, instead of relying on the whim of an obnoxious dollophead.

Merlin did his best to thank George as he took the package, but it was hard when the man stood there with his lip curled up and forehead wrinkled in disapproval. He would probably look down on Merlin forevermore as the ill-bred peasant who had dared stomp on the prince's foot.

He slammed the door a bit harder than he'd intended, then went to the bedroom and threw the garment bag on the bed. Mum was there, demanding he open it and try it on immediately. He rolled his eyes, but knew she wouldn't rest till he obliged her. He unzipped the bag and pulled out a bundle wrapped up in layers of plastic wrap. Even the packaging seemed pretentious. After unwrapping multiple layers, he pulled out the most hideous concoction of red velvet, buttons, and laces he had ever seen.

"For the love of Christmas! What was that prat thinking?" Merlin couldn't stop staring at the monstrosity. There was no way he was ever putting on something like that, let alone wearing it out in public.

His mum frowned a little. "You know that's no way to speak of the prince, Merlin. He's doing you a favor."

Merlin snorted. "Yeah, there's no way this thing can be considered a favor. It's atrocious, Mum!"

"You haven't even tried it on yet. It might not be as bad as you think." She started pulling various articles off of the hangers and laid them out on the bed.

There was a red velvet tunic, emblazoned with a golden dragon. The matching pants were baggy and sported golden tassels at intervals down the outside seams. There was an honest-to-goodness cape with an elaborate collar lined with golden stitches and more tassels. There would be no way—no way!—that Merlin would ever consent to wearing such a disaster of an outfit.

Merlin was contemplating the complete horror of the ensemble in front of him when the door to the suite clanged shut. Only Arthur would just waltz in. Merlin steeled himself for the oncoming battle. His mum called out to let the prince know they were in the bedroom. Merlin whirled around, ready to pounce, but was taken aback by the bulky box Arthur held out to him from the doorway.

"What—is—that?" Merlin's voice grew dangerously loud as he swept his arm towards the abomination on the bed. " _And what_ —pray tell— _is this_?"

Arthur strode in with a cheery grin. "Oh good! You've got your clothes for the party. I've brought you your hat."

Merlin stared at him. "Hat?"

"Of course! You didn't think you could go to a formal event without a formal hat, did you?" Arthur was beaming at him. Merlin had never seen him look so happy. It might have made him look handsome—that is, if he weren't striving to make Merlin's life a living hell.

"Oh, no. No, no, no. There will be no hat. There will be no cape. No tassels, no velvet, no—"

"Merlin! Calm yourself!" Mum's voice cut like a knife through his panic. He winced. Of course Mum would take the prat's side. He was perfect and could do no wrong. "His Highness has been very kind to loan you some appropriate clothing, and you need to be appreciative, no matter how far out of your comfort zone you might be."

"Yeah, Merlin. Be appreciative!"

What Merlin would really appreciate would be to slap that smirk right off of the turniphead's face, no matter what retaliation he might face. He didn't quite dare in front of Mum, though.

Perhaps his mum sensed that his mood was plunging into the danger zone, because she sent Arthur out so that Merlin could try the clothing on in peace. She stayed to help him figure out the various buttons, zippers, and ties. It was humiliating to not be able to dress himself. No, check that. The whole thing was humiliating, full stop.

Merlin avoided looking in the mirror that hung over the dresser. As long as he couldn't see himself, it couldn't be that bad, right? But then Mum opened up the hat box, and Merlin felt like throwing up. The hat—if it could even be called that—was nauseating. It consisted almost entirely of a mass of oversized feathers in green, red, and white. It looked like someone had taken a Christmas wreath, turned the whole thing into feathers, and slammed it on a hat.

Merlin couldn't help the whine that escaped his lips. "Muuuum . . . you can't seriously expect me to wear this?"

She held it up and then placed it on his head. "I think it makes you look quite dashing, sweetie. I never thought I'd see the day where my son—" (she didn't say 'my son the magical freak', but Merlin heard it anyway) "—would be attending events with the prince and princess of Camelot. I know you're not happy with the clothing, but will you please just give it a chance?"

She had that kind of shaky tone to her voice that Merlin knew meant she was getting emotional, maybe holding back tears. Damn it. He never could do anything to make his mum truly sad. While he figured that it was his duty as her son to exasperate her, in the end she was all he had.

Fine. He would wear the feathers. He would go to the party. He would do his best to make Mum happy. He'd plan some revenge. And then he would pretend this had never happened.

This was shaping up to be the worst Christmas season ever.

#

Shortly before six, Merlin donned the most ridiculous of hats and headed out into the corridors of the palace alone. Mum had gone off to have supper with some of her new acquaintances ("They'll be my new friends before the evening's done, honey; perhaps you should attend your party with the same goal?"), and Arthur had disappeared, having things of his own to do. Merlin was certain he just didn't want the two of them to be seen together.

If Merlin had thought Arthur's sitting room had looked like something out of a Christmas catalogue, the West Parlour seemed like something out of a fantasy world. There were so many Christmas trees strung with twinkling silver lights placed along the edges of the room that the parlour walls were no longer visible. Merlin felt like he was entering a Christmas forest. He wouldn't have been surprised to see an actual reindeer peeking out from behind a tree.

The sound of Christmas music floated towards him, and he could see a string quartet set up on the far side of the room. Between him and the musicians was a large crowd of party guests, chatting and sipping on brightly-colored beverages in crystal goblets. And none of them—none!—were wearing a hat, with or without feathers, of any sort.

People looked up at him as he stood between the large, wood-carved doors that had been thrown open to welcome guests. Merlin heard a sudden surge of whispers, followed by what he swore were actual titters that failed to be muffled by hands or goblets.

Merlin's cheeks burned. The space in his chest next to his heart felt like it was on fire. Only his resolve to please his mum kept him from fleeing. And then three separate people dropped their goblets at the exact same time. The simultaneous shattering sounds jump-started the activity in the room again. Two girls in expensive-looking gowns started shrieking. They were both drenched in the bright red punch. It looked like their goblets had been thrown at their torsos, causing the crystal to explode upon impact. Merlin could see a young man in a tuxedo frantically rubbing a napkin over his formerly-pristine white shirt before he threw his head back in laughter and said, "That's one way to get the ladies' attention!"

Merlin fervently hoped that no one would question the Crystal Goblet Disaster too much. He had no desire to be outed as a sorcerer at his social debut in Camelot Palace. He tried to ignore the vindictive thought that it would serve his mother right for making him come in the first place.

Since everyone's attention was diverted away from him, he cautiously stepped farther into the parlour. It gave him a moment to think about his options. His heart was screaming at him to run away and hide and never come out again. But his pride was scornful, telling him that that's what babies would do. And Merlin refused to be a baby!

He scanned the room to see if Arthur was there yet; if Merlin couldn't run away, giving Prince Prat a piece of his mind seemed like a solid second option. He finally found him in the center of a group of young men. They appeared older than Arthur, but seemed to hang on his every word. The whole group looked over in his direction every few moments and then turned back to Arthur, snickering like a bunch of schoolchildren telling dirty jokes. Merlin decided then and there that if he were going to be bold, he might as well go all the way. It was time to confront the enemy.

As he stomped his way across the room, sliding around the party guests in his way, he steeled himself with the knowledge that he could probably vaporize the lot of them with a single, well-intentioned thought. Maybe. Most likely. Not that he'd ever had reason to try it out before.

On the way to his target, an older girl with long, dark hair and a silver dress stepped into his path. He tried to edge around her as he had the other guests, but she would not be ignored.

"You must be Merlin! I'm Morgana. I've looked forward to meeting you." She flashed him an unexpectedly sweet smile.

"You have?" Merlin couldn't hold back his stammer of surprise.

"I have indeed," she said, holding out her gloved hand to Merlin. He reached out to shake it. Morgana looked confused, but then adjusted her angle and shook hands with him. Perhaps he had been meant to kiss it?

"Arthur has been in such a strange mood lately, when I've managed to see him, which hasn't been nearly as often as usual. Always eager to run back to his governess. Seems a bit strange for a teen-aged boy, don't you think?" She gave him a piercing look, causing him to squirm a little.

"Oh—er—I wouldn't really, um, know; I've never had a governess before. Er. Your Highness." Merlin's cheeks started heating up a bit more with each bumbled word.

"Oh, please, call me Morgana. No matter what that brother of mine would have you think, we're just normal people like everybody else." She gave him a wry little smile. Merlin felt his heart jump a little. Maybe not everyone who lived in the palace was an obnoxious prat.

She took a step back and looked him over from head to toe. "That's an exciting outfit you've got there."

Okay, he took it back. They were all obnoxious prats. That's all right—he could handle this.

"Well, I have your brother to thank for his impeccable fashion sense, Your Highness—"

"Morgana."

"—Oh yes. Morgana. Right. I was actually just going to go over and thank him for his thoughtfulness. You could join me if you'd like?" Merlin didn't care if it was rude. He pushed past the possibly-obnoxious, possibly-decent princess and continued his mission to assuage his stinging pride. He had to do it now, before his nerve failed him or, worse, his magic got impatient and decided to start shattering more goblets.

Morgana reached out and grabbed his arm, but he was not deterred. He strode over to the prince's clique, pulling the princess along with him. The boys, all of them older and taller than Merlin, smirked and sniggered as he approached. Merlin greeted them with a blinding smile.

"Why, hello there, your Highness. Thank you so much for letting me borrow your clothing. I just wanted to come and compliment you on your amazing fashion sense. I'm sure this looked splendid on you when you were my age."

Arthur stepped back slightly. One of his companions (the boy with the punch spilt down his front, who had apparently decided that female attention, whether good or bad, was worth the price of wearing damp, stained clothing) snorted and said, "Yes, I'm sure you looked incredibly lovely in all those feathers, Arthur."

"Shut it, Gwaine," Arthur hissed, elbowing the other boy in the ribs. He continued more loudly, "You must be mistaken, Merlin. I wouldn't be caught dead in such an outfit."

Merlin exhaled in an aborted laugh. "That's funny, because you swore to my mother you were just letting me borrow some of your old things. Shall I go tell her that you were lying?"

There was quite a crowd gathered around them, now. A couple of Arthur's companions started taking off their jackets and loosening their collars; Merlin wondered if they were expecting a fight to break out. He didn't really expect a bunch of snooty aristocrats to resort to fisticuffs. But then again, Arthur seemed to revel in roughing him up every other day.

Morgana looked delighted at the whole spectacle, as if Father Christmas had come personally to deliver her a gift. A few other young ladies had come over to see what the fuss was. They blinked their eyelashes a bit more than the situation called for; Merlin certainly didn't notice any dust in the air. Some of the jacketless young men noticed and flexed their arms in response. Merlin didn't get it, but figured he had more important things to deal with right now.

Arthur seemed unperturbed by the crowd. He probably knew they'd all kiss his boots if he asked them to.

"Are you calling me a liar, Merlin?" Arthur's eyes squinted in a way that was probably supposed to be menacing, but which Merlin thought just made him look as if he had something in his eye. Maybe Merlin's magic had gotten a bit out of control and conjured some invisible dust?

"Since what you told my mother is entirely at odds with what you're saying now, I would have to conclude that one of those two times you were lying. So, yes, if you asked what I thought about it, I'd have to call you a liar. And a turniphead." Merlin gulped as he said it. Taunting Arthur in private was one thing, but doing it in front of his friends was something else entirely.

The crowd fell still, as if they were all holding their breath in anticipation of what the prince would do in the face of such a blatant insult. The only sound came from the string quartet doing a spirited version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."

Arthur grew redder and redder in the face. Then he burst out into hearty peals of laughter. "Oh, Merlin, I may be a turniphead, but you are a fantastic idiot. Not to mention an elf. Did you bring us any presents?" Arthur turned his head about, as if looking for gifts. "Though I must say that Morgana here looks as if she's already received one—"

"Indeed, Brother dear!" She beamed at Merlin as if he were a priceless treasure.

"—not that she deserves any presents. I can hardly imagine she made it onto the nice list this year."

"As if you're one to talk! At least I'm not a—what was it?—oh, yes, a liar and a turniphead! I think you should count your blessings that Merlin here doesn't—"

But Merlin never found out whatever it was that he wasn't—or perhaps was—going to. The West Parlour was suddenly flooded with the palace's security guards, bearing hand-held radios and a disturbing amount of guns. Merlin was surprised that no one appeared to panic: indeed, hardly anyone seemed surprised, apart from him. Leon, the Captain of the Guard, was there. Merlin was quite familiar with him, as he often patrolled the main hallway outside the Christmas catalogue room. He had always responded to Merlin's pleas for directions with large smiles and good-natured ribbing. But now he was neither smiling nor ready to tease.

Instead he addressed Arthur and Morgana. "I'm very sorry, your Highnesses, but there's been a serious security threat. We're going to have to cancel the rest of the party. Hopefully it's nothing to worry about, but you know how King Uther likes to be cautious. I'll have some guards escort you both to your rooms. There will be extra guards stationed both in and outside of your chambers until we are assured the danger has passed. I recommend everyone else head straight home, as well."

There was lots of grumbling, but no one protested. Well, no one but the boy named Gwaine, who had finally stripped off his stained shirt and was looking rather cozy with his arms slung around a couple of young ladies.

Merlin remained motionless as the other guests surged around him to reach the doors. Some of his confusion must have shown in his face because Leon came over to him, saying, "Come along then, Mr Emrys, I'll take you back to your rooms with his Highness." Leon paused for a moment, then grinned. "Nice hat!"

Merlin grinned back. "I'll let Arthur know you thought so. It is his, after all."

Leon shot him an incredulous look, but then grabbed Merlin's arm and dragged him through the crowd, trying to catch up to the prince. As they pushed past some of the dawdlers, Merlin decided to press Leon for more information.

"What's going on, Leon? What's so worrisome that we aren't even safe in the palace?"

Leon didn't answer right away. When he did, Merlin could tell he was getting the whitewashed answer. "It's probably nothing to worry about. Just some gossip amongst the townspeople. But the king has adopted the policy of "better safe than sorry". Ever since he lost the queen—well, perhaps that's a story best told another time."

Merlin was starting to get frustrated with the lack of specific information. Sometimes, like now, it felt like he had moved into a warzone with no enemy and no war. It was perplexing. Merlin tried again.

"Why would it be safer in the prince's rooms? Shouldn't everywhere in the palace be safe?"

"The king has taken extra precautions to make certain areas of the palace nearly impregnable. Yes, this includes all the royal living areas. No, I'm not going to tell you what the precautions are. Now come along, I want to get you and the prince back home sooner than later." Leon let go of Merlin and strode ahead quickly, putting an end to any more questions.

Merlin caught up with Arthur, who was accompanied by two additional guards. They arrived back in the prince's suite, but this time, the extra guards came in and stationed themselves in the sitting room. Arthur ignored Merlin completely and went straight to his bedroom. Merlin, who had not come even close to forgiving or forgetting the debacle with the feather hat, figured it was just as well. If Arthur stayed anywhere near him, he wasn't confident he'd manage to keep himself under control. And with the guards right there, it'd probably be best if Merlin kept his temper—and his magic—in check.

He trudged back to his own room to begin the painstaking process of removing his ridiculous outfit. He was on his own since Mum still hadn't returned. Would her gathering also be cancelled? Or was only royalty at risk? At risk from what?

Merlin didn't know, but decided he would figure it out in the not-so-distant future. Right now he was wrung out from the evening: the embarrassment, the thrill of challenging Arthur, the adrenaline of the security intrusion. Now if only his mum would show up to rescue him from this wretched outfit.

A violent ripping sound yanked Merlin out of his moping. In his mental exhaustion, it took Merlin a moment to realize he was standing stark naked, his clothing in shreds around his feet. All that remained were his socks and shoes. Merlin kicked those off and dove into bed. His mum would be irate when she found the scrap heap that was the remains of Arthur's "old" outfit. (If the prat hadn't had it made expressly for the purpose of humiliating him, Merlin would go eat that ridiculous feather hat.) Merlin's only regret was that the feathered abomination of a hat was perfectly intact, having been placed safely on the dresser before Merlin's magic let loose in its fit of pique.


	8. In which Merlin learns surprising things

Chapter Eight: In which Merlin learns some surprising things

* * *

Merlin's school holidays began the Monday following the disastrous Christmas party. (Between the outfit, his out-of-control magic, Arthur being a prat, and the security interruption, Merlin thought "disastrous" wasn't too much of a stretch). He hadn't seen Arthur since then; Mum said he was spending time with his father and sister. Merlin thought the prince was being a coward, not wanting to engage either Merlin or his mum on the topic of feathers. But it was a pleasant escape from the arrogance and snark. And if Merlin thought that things were too quiet, he wasn't going to say so out loud.

As for his mum, she had taken one look at the shreds of red velvet on the floor, sighed loudly, then told Merlin to throw it all in the bin. Merlin took her lack of reproach as tacit agreement that Arthur had done him no favors.

The first day of the holidays, he was in no hurry to get out of bed. Mum had gone out somewhere, probably with Arthur, and Merlin had nothing pressing to do. Later he wanted to go last-minute Christmas shopping. There was a department store nearby, close to the bus stop, and Mum would let him go alone, as long as he told her where he was going. He had never been allowed to go somewhere like that on his own before, and it thrilled him. He wondered if Arthur would want to go too. Then he remembered that he was rather vexed with Arthur at the moment. Besides, Merlin doubted the prince would be allowed out of the palace, even if he took a fleet of security guards with him.

Merlin was buttering his toast in the tiny kitchen when he heard voices from the sitting room. Mum had probably left the door cracked open; she often did when she was in a hurry. Merlin figured it was a couple of guards chatting, but then he heard Arthur speaking and an unknown voice answering.

After a moment, Merlin could tell they were having an extended conversation, so it wasn't one of the guards; they were too serious to speak more than necessary. Merlin padded silently down the short hallway that led to the cracked door. He was curious because he almost never heard Arthur speaking to anyone besides him and his mum. He hoped to overhear something interesting, perhaps ammunition he could use in his battle against Arthur's pratliness.

"Lance asked if I could go play footie with him and some of the guys next Saturday." Arthur sounded more plaintive than Merlin had ever heard him.

"You know you can't, Arthur. It's not safe." The other voice was deep and strong. Now that he was closer, Merlin thought it sounded vaguely familiar.

"But Father, you can't keep me locked up forever. Haven't you always said that as prince it's important for me to know the people, to better serve them? How can I do that if I can't leave the palace? I need to see my friends."

Ah, that's why the voice had seemed familiar; Merlin had heard King Uther speaking a few times on the telly. He had never met him in person, though. Merlin had always considered him a sort of bogeyman, a sort of two-dimensional bad guy who would lock Merlin up for having the gall to be born with magic. Merlin had never considered the king as a living, breathing human being before. It was surreal to hear him talking like a normal person.

"I'm sorry, but you can't go out. If you have the need for companionship you'll have to make do with Morgana. Or you might try spending some time with that Emrys boy. Gaius tells me he's a nice enough young man."

The king thought he was 'nice'? Wait—the king knew who he was? That was no good! He'd need to keep his magic on its best behavior. The bogeyman-king might not sentence him to death, but Merlin had no desire to go to prison for the rest of his life. Not that they'd be able to keep him there for long, but Merlin didn't really fancy life as an outlaw either.

Arthur scoffed. "Merlin? He's an idiot! Plus he has no sense of respect for his betters."

Oh yes, they were talking about him. He should pay attention.

"And I assume that you think that you are his better? I've always told you that you need to act in a way befitting your station—"

"Of course I do, Father!"

"Which is why you are interrupting me? Your father and your king? Really, Arthur."

"Sorry," he muttered.

"As I was saying, you need to behave like the prince that you are, or the people will have no respect you. And from what I hear, you have treated Mr Emrys poorly." The king sounded disappointed and unruffled at the same time. Maybe it was a king thing: Mum's voice always sparked with emotion when scolding him.

"It's not my fault he has no sense of humor." Was Arthur pouting? Yes, that was definitely pouting. Merlin longed to go harass him for sounding like a toddler.

"I'm sure your sense of humor isn't always the best when your pride is on the line, either. In the future I expect you to make an effort to be kind to him."

"You can't be serious!" Arthur sounded horrified.

"If you must, think of him as a representative of your people. The people will not always follow docilely where you would have them go. Nor can you imprison everyone who digs in their heels. This as an exercise in leadership: sometimes you have to use charm and persuasion instead of relying on the authority of your position."

The even tone of the king's voice never wavered. In contrast, Arthur's voice sounded increasingly peevish.

"But Merlin is so idiotic he wouldn't recognize charm if it came up and asked him on a date."

"Nevertheless, I expect you to try. You will run into people all through your life who will be both impervious to your charm and unimpressed by your title. And yet, if you don't win them over, you will accomplish very little in your reign. Just look how hard it has been for me to make progress on the issue of magic."

Merlin's heart thumped furiously. Had he heard that right? Progress? Magic? What were they talking about?

"I thought that it was going well? You passed the law doing away with capital punishment quickly enough." Arthur certainly seemed to know what was going on.

"Yes, but the council is unwilling to decriminalize magic all the way. And I am not sure how to persuade them."

Merlin couldn't believe his ears.

"Could you not just come out and tell them about Morgana? Surely they would understand."

Morgana? What was going on with Morgana?

"It's not that easy. The laws against magic are older than anyone alive today. That gives them the weight of tradition, which is hard to combat. I worry that if I tell them about Morgana, instead of changing the laws, they would arrest her."

Rather than sounding like a bad guy, the king was doing a remarkable impression of a loving father and reasonable person. Merlin's head was spinning.

"But surely they couldn't? You are the king after all. They cannot go against you!"

"Oh, but they could, especially if they thought I had been corrupted by what they would call my evil witch of a daughter." He sounded bitter, older than he had moments ago. But Merlin also heard resolve in his voice, an intention to not give in.

The king continued, "And that is why we have to be strategic. I can't unilaterally change the laws, so I made the case that execution is a violation of human rights. It took some doing—and a lot of help from some sympathetic genetic scientists—to get the council to agree that sorcerers are actually human and deserving of human rights."

"But you managed it. You're the king. They have to listen to you."

"But they don't have to agree with me. A position on the council grants a councillor a significant amount of power. If you don't understand this, you'll never accomplish anything as king. I think you're old enough now; it's time for you to attend council meetings and learn how to govern."

"But—what about my studies? I'm already working hard—"

Merlin wasn't sure he had heard Arthur whine before; but then, when had Arthur ever been denied anything?

"No. You're not working hard. Your tutors tell me you give a half-hearted effort, enough to skate by, but not to excel. I know you spend much of your time on childish pursuits . . . trains, comics, video games. I've let you because it seemed safer than taking you places with me. But it's clear you have much to learn, about ruling and about hard work. You will accompany me to all council meetings from here on out."

"But—"

"And if the effort you put into your lessons doesn't improve, you will lose your privileges, starting with your computer."

"Father!"

"It's time to grow up, son. I know it's not always fun, but it must happen."

Merlin thought this the best thing he'd heard in a long time. Sure, the news that the king was trying to legalize magic was great, but it sounded like that wouldn't happen for awhile. But Arthur, arrogant, irritating Arthur, getting his comeuppance from the king, was both immediate and thrilling. Maybe now Arthur would have less time for lounging around making snide comments while Merlin actually tried to get his homework done.

Merlin needed time to process everything he'd heard—Morgana with magic? Truly?—but the conversation kept going.

"You need to learn to strategize, to stack the odds in your favor before you engage in the battle. Think about the issue of magic, for example. What strategy would you suggest to encourage the acceptance of benevolent magic?"

The king's voice had adopted the passionate tone that Merlin's teacher used when engrossed in a lesson. It was harder and harder for Merlin to remain still as the knowledge that the king was on his side sank in. He had the sudden urge to start dancing, but bit down sharply on his fingers instead.

Arthur, when he spoke again, sounded thoughtful, yet hesitant.

"You might . . . try to show that magic can be good, that it doesn't corrupt. Maybe . . . find some sorcerers who have done good things and use them as examples?"

"But what's to keep the council from throwing your example sorcerers in prison?"

"You'd have to conceal their identities somehow. Or maybe use something like a witness protection program?" Arthur didn't sound convinced.

"But then you're asking them to risk a lot."

"But wouldn't they want to help decriminalize magic? So they wouldn't have to worry about being caught?"

"You'll find that most people who have magic are used to hiding; they've never known anything else. It's scary to risk everything you've ever known on the hope that things might improve. Not many people are willing."

Merlin thought about this. He wanted to think that he wouldn't be scared, that he'd be willing to fight for magical freedom. But in his superhero daydreams, the ones where he used his magic to help others, he was always hiding behind a secret identity. Couldn't that work, though?

"I'd be willing!" Arthur exclaimed. "I'd want to fight for my freedom."

Merlin rolled his eyes. Arthur had probably not had to fight for anything in his life. He was a spoiled prat who had everything presented to him on a diamond platter.

"And yet you aren't willing to put forth the effort to learn how to be a good king. I expect better of you in the coming year."

Arthur sighed loudly. "Yes, sir."

Merlin heard footsteps coming towards him and tensed, but then the king said, "I have work to do, but I'll see you for dinner. Don't forget our guests from Mora have arrived for the Christmas festivities. You'll need formal dress for the welcome banquet tonight."

Arthur's voice brightened. "I can't wait to meet the Lady Helen. Her . . . singing . . . is lovely."

The king snorted. Merlin never imagined someone as imposing as the king could make such an undignified sound. "I'm sure that's not all you find lovely about the Lady Helen. Just make sure you're on your best behavior, please. I really don't need a repeat of that time the Lady Vivian came to visit."

There was a quiet chuckling sound, then Merlin heard footsteps and the thud of the door closing. The room fell silent. He didn't move an inch, and allowed himself only the most shallow of breaths. Although he couldn't hear him, he was confident Arthur hadn't left the room. Merlin didn't want the prat to discover him now.

But, alas, luck was not with him. Arthur's voice rang out, "You can come out now, Elf-Boy; I know you're there." Well, piffle. Merlin obviously needed to work on his stealth skills before he embarked on his career as a superhero.

He decided to stay still: maybe Arthur was bluffing? But no, Arthur stormed across the room and threw open the door that Merlin was hiding behind.

"Bloody hell! What'd you do that for?" Merlin pressed his hands to his nose and forehead, both of which had been walloped by the door.

Arthur smiled angelically at him. "How was I to know you were skulking behind the door?"

"You damn well knew I was there! You even called out to me!"

"And yet, you didn't respond. What was I to think?"

Merlin glared at him from his place on the floor. "You are the biggest prat in the known universe! Didn't I hear something about how you're supposed to treat the people with kindness and respect?"

Arthur patted him on the head. "You're hardly 'the people', Merlin. And if my father knew how exasperating you are, he would sympathize with me . . . ."

Merlin just rolled his eyes. "Surely this is the pot calling the kettle black?"

But Arthur streamrolled right over him. "Now I expect that you can keep your mouth shut about what you heard today? I didn't want my father to know you were listening and decide you needed a one-way trip to the torture rooms he's set up for spies and traitors. Despite your idiocy, I can hardly see you as a weasel."

"You don't have any torture rooms. You're just trying to scare me."

Arthur nodded, pleased. "Is it working?"

Merlin pushed himself up from where he had been not-quite-cowering behind the door and pushed past Arthur. "No. Should it be?"

Arthur followed him into the kitchen, where Merlin started boiling water for tea.

"It'd be helpful if you were at least slightly concerned. I'm growing used to your particular style of idiocy. It would be a shame if it weren't around anymore."

Merlin lifted his right eyebrow, puzzled. "Is that a threat or a compliment, your Highness?"

Arthur grabbed a cookie from the jar on the counter and headed for the hall. "Take it any way you like," he said, banging the door behind him.


	9. In which there is an impasse

Chapter Nine: In which Arthur and Merlin arrive at an impasse

* * *

Arthur must have been particularly busy the week before Christmas, because Merlin saw him only in passing. That didn't mean he left Merlin in peace.

On Tuesday, they crossed paths in one of the palace corridors as Merlin returned from shopping at the nearby department store. Merlin was thrilled to have been allowed to go on his own. He had used most of the savings from his allowance to buy his Mum an amethyst necklace. The gem was small, but genuine, and he knew she would love it.

Trust the cabbagehead to punch a hole in his happiness.

Arthur grinned at him as he approached and said, "You looked great in red velvet, by the way."

Merlin huffed. "Why do you have to be such a prat?"

Arthur, who was halfway down the hall, called back over his shoulder, "Why did you steal my comic books?"

"Er . . . what?"

But the prince was gone. Merlin felt a painful roiling sensation in his stomach. He knew he'd waited too long, and vowed to return his "borrowed" items immediately. It would take more magic than the original theft had required. Since the night of the party, there were security guards posted inside as well as outside the prince's suite. Nothing a sleep spell or two couldn't handle, though. Hopefully. If he could get his magic to behave for once.

He prayed that returning the comics would suffice. He didn't think Arthur would snitch on him . . . . But now the "I'm Gettin' Nuttin' for Christmas" song was stuck in his head. Dang it.

#

Wednesday, Merlin found Arthur sitting in the Christmas catalogue room, gazing into the fire. As he walked to the door of his suite, he called out, "Why feathers?"

Arthur turned his head and gave him a fond look, as if recalling a happy memory that Merlin had been a part of. Merlin was about to make some snarky comment about how only prats would find joy in others' humiliations, when Arthur said, "Why comics?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." It wasn't quite a lie; Arthur really hadn't specified exactly what he wanted to know about the comics.

Arthur nodded in an agreeable manner. "Then I'm sure I don't know what feathers you are talking about either."

Arthur smirked at him, then got up and strode off to his own rooms. Merlin stuck his tongue out at his back till the prince was out of sight.

#

On Thursday, Merlin successfully smuggled the comics back to their proper home. He'd never had instruction in spellwork, but wasn't sure he could just will the security guards to sleep without mishap. His magic tended to go awry and it was crucial that it didn't. If he were caught out as a sorcerer who used magic against palace staff for the purpose of sneaking into the prince's room, he'd be arrested for sure.

Though his dad had disappeared before Merlin was born, Merlin's mum still had a few of his possessions locked away in a scratched-up red truck. Mum never gave him permission to look at the contents, but that didn't stop Merlin. He had long since discovered the chest was mainly filled with books, one of which was a compendium of magic spells. He occasionally looked through it, but for the most part found it too difficult for him to make heads or tails of. He never dared look for too long, either; Mum had a distressing habit of turning up when Merlin least wanted her.

He knew the book contained a sleeping spell, supposedly one that caused the target to wake up without realizing they had ever been asleep. This time when sneaking into Mum's trunk, he came armed with pen and paper, ready to take notes. He'd never written spells down before, afraid his mum would find them. But this was an emergency—desperate times call for desperate measures, and all that rot.

(Merlin ignored the voice in his head that suggested that he was exaggerating the severity of the situation. When the voice insisted that he was risking exposure for the sake of his pride, he batted it away, claiming that if his theft were proven, they'd suspect magic anyway.)

Mum and Arthur had gone to attend a formal luncheon, so Merlin knew he'd have time for his endeavor. Acquiring the spell was easy. (Perhaps he could work as a spy if the whole superhero thing didn't work out.) Practicing the spell was an entirely different matter. He didn't want the guard on duty in the Christmas catalogue room to hear him practicing magic, so he set the telly to a music channel, which would justify having the volume loud. Then he locked himself in the loo, turned on the fan for extra noise, and read out the spell he had copied.

" _Swefe nu_!"

Nothing happened. That was when he realized the drawback to his plan. How would he know it had worked if he didn't have someone to practice on? (Maybe he wasn't smart enough to be a spy after all. Bummer.) Maybe if he said the spell correctly, he'd feel his magic working?

He tried a few more times, but nothing happened. That just meant it was time to develop Plan B. Plan B was to crack open the door to the suite, hide behind it, and practice on the guard without him noticing. Merlin wanted the music to remain loud, to (hopefully) cover up his incantations. But when he opened the door, the guard would notice the music getting louder. Would it be suspicious if Merlin cracked the door for no discernible reason?

Merlin needed an excuse to leave the door cracked. The guard wouldn't blink an eye if he went out to the Christmas catalogue room to grab some of the hazelnuts the housekeeping staff kept supplied on the end table near the fireplace. Merlin walked out, doing his best impression of a boy who merely fancied some nuts. Owaine was on duty, and Merlin nodded to him as he passed. Owaine nodded back, but did not stray from his post by the external door. As Merlin progressed farther into the room, the sound of music followed him. He was pleased with its volume—it would be effective camouflage.

Merlin made sure to leave the door to his suite slightly open when he returned. It was common for Mum to leave the door cracked open when she came in. She claimed it was to help Arthur feel welcome. Merlin just thought she was lazy. Owaine shouldn't think anything of it.

Merlin deposited the nuts in the kitchen, then snuck back to the entryway and hid behind the door. He could barely see Owaine through the gaps by the hinges. It would have to do. He stared at the unsuspecting guard and whispered, " _Swefe nu_." Nothing happened. He tried again, louder. Still nothing. Maybe he was saying it wrong?

Merlin tried changing the pronunciation, but each attempt was met with the same result. Until one time he said it with all long vowels, each syllable separated by a pause. Merlin felt the warmth of magic flowing through his limbs and out towards Owaine. But instead of falling asleep, he belched loudly enough to be heard over the music.

Merlin would have found it funny if he hadn't been so irritated. He sat behind the door, clenching his fists and gritting his teeth in frustration. Why did it have to be so hard? Why couldn't he just make the guy go to sleep? Shouldn't he be half-asleep already, just from the sheer boredom of guarding an empty room?

That was when he felt the magic again, this time flowing out of him towards Owaine without any direction from Merlin. He looked out the crack to see the guard yawning and then slowly sinking down to the floor, clearly asleep.

Merlin smacked his cheek in anger. He had really wanted to get that spell to work. But he raced to complete his mission anyway. At any moment the spell could wear off, or worse: Arthur might return to find Merlin in his supposedly-locked bedroom, rummaging through his things. Best get on with it.

#

Although completely flubbing his attempt to use an actual spell, the rest of the mission went well. Merlin returned the comics without issue, and Owaine woke without much of a fuss—at least he didn't cry sorcery and call for backup.

That night Mum dragged Merlin to a Christmas concert in the Avalon ballroom, the largest ballroom in the palace. The Albion Symphony Orchestra was performing, accompanied by the Camelot Children's Choir. Merlin was surprised by how much he enjoyed it, particularly the childrens' rendition of Carol of the Bells, which was accompanied solely by handbells.

Arthur attended too, but sat with Princess Morgana and the king. Merlin still found himself standing next to Arthur at the reception during the intermission. Concert-goers nibbled on pastries and sipped champagne, but Mum made him get sparkling cider. He rolled his eyes at her, but did as she asked. Of course the prat would come to tease him about it.

"Still a milk-drinker, eh, Elf-Boy?"

Merlin harrumphed. "I prefer not to rot my brain cells, is all. I'd think you'd want to be more careful, since you clearly don't have any to spare."

Arthur took a swig of the champagne in the flute he carried. "You must have confused me with yourself, _Mer_ lin. You're the one not competent enough to eavesdrop without getting caught."

"And yet, you must think me somewhat capable, as you've called me a thief."

Arthur nodded. "And you called the prince of Camelot a liar, which clearly shows your lack of brain cells."

"You _are_ a liar."

"And you _are_ a thief."

"You know . . . if you're a liar, you could be lying about me being a thief! Besides, are you even missing anything? You probably just misplaced your stupid comics." Merlin hoped his voice didn't wobble too badly in his attempt to sound nonchalant. It was far-fetched, but perhaps Arthur might think he'd been mistaken about the whole affair.

Arthur laughed as Merlin's mum came to escort Merlin back to their seats for the second act. "Whatever helps you sleep at night, _Mer_ lin," he said. "Though we could just call it even."

#

Friday morning, Mum sent Merlin to Uncle Gaius' office to deliver some documents. Merlin snuck a glance at them as he walked; Mum had written a report summarizing Arthur's activities and behaviour for the week. Merlin briefly thought 'Poor Arthur, constantly monitored', but this sympathy vanished when he saw the prat himself.

Arthur was reclining on a settee outside Gaius's office door. Merlin looked in and saw Gaius talking on the phone. He was surrounded by so many piles of books and papers that Merlin was surprised the phone hadn't been lost in the chaos.

He glanced at Arthur, who sent him an appraising look. "If you're looking for an outfit to wear to the Christmas Day feast, I could always help you out."

Merlin snorted. "You do know what Santa brings to naughty boys and girls, don't you?"

Arthur purred, "And here I was trying to be nice to you! But I would understand if you were preparing for disappointment. Don't worry. I don't think the naughty-or-nice rules apply to elves."

Merlin resisted the urge to whack Arthur on the top of his head with the bundle of documents he still carried. "I'm sure the rules still apply to prats, though."

Arthur made a show of settling back on the settee, hands behind his head and feet kicked up over an armrest. He oozed arrogance.

"You know, it's a funny thing, Merlin. I went to read my _Heroes of Albion_ comics, and they were all there, in perfect numeric order. Though two of them seemed somewhat wrinkled, as if they'd been unwilling participants in a wrestling match. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"How should I know?" Merlin sniped. "You won't let me anywhere near your things."

"Aw, is the baby elf jealous?"

Merlin made a show of rolling his eyes in contempt, hoping Arthur wouldn't realize how close to the truth he had come. "And what would you know about jealousy, your Highness?"

Just then, Gaius hung up the phone and came to the door. He greeted Merlin with a smile and reached out for the documents he carried. As Arthur stood up and followed Gaius back into the office, Merlin swore he heard him mutter, "You'd be surprised."


	10. In which Merlin goes swimming

Chapter Ten: In which Merlin goes swimming and makes some new friends

* * *

Saturday was Christmas Eve, and Mum didn't have to work at all. It was her first day completely Arthur-free. Merlin was thrilled. Mum didn't work a lot of hours in a day, but she had to work everyday and was on call even when not officially on duty. Having a whole day with his mum, no turnipheads in sight, was a lovely Christmas present.

The two of them listened to Christmas carols and played card games. They ate fudge and popcorn and Christmas cookies. They watched a bit of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on the telly. After a lunch of thick vegetable soup and garlic bread, they went to the palace pool to go swimming. Mum had gotten special permission to use the pool, and Merlin was ecstatic. He'd never had much opportunity to go swimming. Occasionally Mum had taken her charges to a pool and Merlin would tag along, but that had been rare.

The swimming pool was in what was essentially a large greenhouse on the roof of the palace. When they walked in, they were hit with a wave of warm, steamy air. The walls and roof were almost entirely made of glass. The pool was a crystalline blue, surrounded by a deck covered with glass tiles arranged in complex patterns. The deck was large and had chaise lounge chairs and tables scattered about. Around the deck was a mini arboretum, with colorful flowers, berry-laden bushes, and all sorts of exotic trees (Merlin only recognized a few, like the ones bearing oranges and lemons). It gave the illusion that the pool was in a forest clearing, though no normal Albion forest could ever have such a strange assortment of plant life.

Many of the trees had been strung with fairy lights, and some were sporting large, brightly-colored Christmas ornaments. Outside the windowed walls, the day was grey and drizzly; inside it was sparkling, brilliant, magical.

Merlin fell instantly in love. He hadn't realized until now how little time he'd spent outdoors since his move to the palace. When he did go out, it was only to walk along dreary city streets whose sparse plant life had died with the approach of winter. The air here smelled of life, of happy little growing things living in peace and beauty. There was a hint of chlorine, too, but that was mostly masked by the scent of pine and rose and . . . a whole lot of things that Merlin couldn't recognize. He wondered if he could get permission to come and help the gardeners sometime; then he could learn more about all that was here.

His mum smiled at him, eyes beaming with joy. "Gorgeous, isn't it? I can almost imagine a tiny forest dryad peeking out at us from behind those ferns over there."

Merlin threw his arms around her. "It's lovely, Mum. Thanks for bringing me here." He planted a kiss on her cheek. She chuckled at him, and then said, "Get on with you, then. We can't stay for too long; other people will be coming for a swim in a little while, and they'll need their privacy."

Merlin grinned, then ran over to the pool and jumped in feet first. Well, he tried to go feet first. At the last moment he slipped on some wet tiles near the edge, and flopped into the pool on his belly. It stung, but he was glad no one was there to see but his mum, who was digging in her bag for a book, paying him no attention. It'd be hard to endure the ribbing Arthur would have dispensed had he seen.

Merlin was shocked by how warm the water was; almost all his experience swimming had been in outdoor pools heated only by the sun, which essentially meant they weren't heated at all. It was delightful. He paddled around a bit, before deciding to experiment on the diving board. He wasn't a strong swimmer, knowing no formal strokes, but he could doggy paddle well enough to get out of the deep end after jumping in.

Merlin experimented with different ways of jumping off the diving board. He went frontwards and backwards and sideways. He tried spinning jumps, cannon balls, and belly flops. He attempted somersaulting in the air, but splatted flat on his back (ouch!) or crashed into his face, which thrust water painfully far up his nose.

He was so enthralled in figuring out how to complete an entire flip without hurting himself that he didn't notice that there were other people in the pool house until he climbed up the ladder and saw his mum curtsying and bobbing her head. He was surprised to see a couple of teen-aged girls in brightly-colored bikinis standing by his mum.

"I'm so sorry, your Highness," he heard his mum say, more nervous than her wont. "I was so engrossed in my book, I didn't realize what time it was. We'll leave right away."

Merlin, wondering what was going on, climbed out of the pool, grabbed the towel he had left nearby, and headed over slowly. The closer he got to the girls, the more uncomfortable he felt: they were both several years older than he was and gorgeous. As for Merlin, he was a scrawny, awkward, dripping wet ugly duckling. He pulled the towel tighter around himself.

"No need to worry, Miss Hunith," said a tall, pale girl with a long dark braid—Princess Morgana, Merlin realized. "We don't mind if you stay the rest of the afternoon, do we, Gwen?"

The other girl—Gwen— giggled a bit, which shook her long black curls, then said, "Of course not! It's not like we were going skinny-dipping or anything. Not that we would go skinny-dipping, of course. . . . I just meant we wouldn't be doing anything untoward today. . . . Not that we ever—!"

"What Gwen means," Morgana said, "is that we would love to have company."

Merlin's mum wasn't convinced. "But Merlin there is making quite a racket with all that jumping and splashing and whatnot. You can't possibly—"

But Morgana was not dissuaded. "I, for one, think it looks like fun. And I would love the chance to get to know Merlin a bit better."

"You would?" Merlin squeaked. He had finally arrived, clutching his towel tightly around him.

Morgana beamed at him. "Of course I would. I don't think I've ever seen anyone get under Arthur's skin the way that you do. I need you to give me lessons!"

He felt some of the tension drain away from his body. Gwen giggled with Morgana, and even his Mum smiled. Merlin felt his face breaking into a grin. The boys at his school would wig out if they knew he was going swimming with the _princess_ who was _gorgeous_ and wearing a _bikini_ and had brought her cute friend with her. . . . Not that Merlin would ever tell them. He was still trying to maintain the illusion that he was just a normal kid, at least at school.

Morgana eyed him critically. He could feel himself blushing to the tips of his unfortunate ears. She continued, "I didn't have much of an opportunity to talk to you at the party, what with all the distractions. Now that I'm paying attention, I would have to say that you're taller in person. And I would never have guessed about those ears. Interesting. . . ."

Merlin frowned, confused. "—Taller in person? Why would you guess anything about my ears?"

Morgana ignored him. "Forgive me for not introducing you to my friend. Merlin, Miss Hunith, this is my best friend, Gwen. She's the daughter of the head of the Camelot Palace maintenance department. She's lived here at the palace since before I arrived when I was nine.

"Gwen, this is Miss Hunith, Arthur's new governess, and her son Merlin."

Gwen giggled again (must be a girl thing, Merlin thought) and said, "Pleased to meet you both. I remember you from the party, Merlin. I thought you were so brave, standing up to Arthur like that."

Mum's sharp voice cut into Merlin's happy daze. "What did Merlin do at the party?"

Well, crap. This was going to be the end of his lovely afternoon, since Mum was going to drag him back to his room by his ears. (And damn those ears for being so large and grabbable!)

But Gwen continued, "Oh, no, Miss Hunith. Merlin was fine. Arthur was just being a bully as usual. Trying to show off to his friends, no doubt."

Morgana chimed in, "Oh, absolutely, Miss Hunith. Arthur was being an arse and Merlin didn't put up with it. All the girls thought he was a real hero."

Merlin felt his face burning with a strange mix of pleasure and shame. Mum didn't look convinced, but said, "Yes, of course, your Highness." Then she shot Merlin a look that said that they would be having _words_ later. Later was good. He could deal with later. Just as long as this brilliant afternoon didn't have to end yet.

"Race you to the pool!" Morgana shouted, and they were off, Merlin dropping his towel as they ran. This time, though, he was careful not to slip as he threw himself into the water. He didn't think either Morgana or Gwen would be the type to mock him relentlessly (unlike certain prats he knew), but it would be safer to limit the teasing fodder as much as possible, just in case.

Once in the pool, Morgana and Gwen spent a lot of time splashing each other and shrieking about it. Merlin didn't feel comfortable enough to roughhouse with them, so soon went back to jumping off the diving board. He was surprised when Gwen came to the board and nailed a one-and-a-half somersault, entering the water with barely a splash.

"That was amazing!" Merlin called to her, once her head reappeared above water.

"You think so?" Gwen called back. "It's not that amazing really. . . . I mean, I'm sure anyone could do it—okay, maybe not anyone, I mean, you're doing a great job trying! I'm sure you'll get it soon!"

By the time Gwen had made it back to the diving board, Merlin was laughing and wasn't sure he could stop. "You're so sweet, Gwen! It's okay. I know I'm pants at diving and swimming. I haven't had a lot of practice."

Gwen had blushed a brilliant rose color. "I could teach you. . . ? Not that I'm a great teacher or anything, but it might be better than nothing . . . not that what you're doing is nothing, of course—"

"That'd be wonderful, Gwen! I'm sure you're a wonderful teacher." She beamed at him, and then started the job of giving pointers right away.

Now that Gwen was also using the diving board, Merlin would occasionally have to wait his turn. Mostly he watched Gwen, trying to learn how she managed to make somersaults look so easy. But he also spent time admiring the "forest". Once when he was admiring the view, he noticed movement underneath a tree. There was definitely a person hiding over there. His heart started pounding.

When Gwen rejoined him, he whispered urgently to her, "Gwen! There's someone behind that tree over there!"

Gwen looked over in the direction he had glanced, and then giggled (again!). "Oh, don't worry, Merlin. It's just Morgana's guards. They follow her everywhere. She hates it, so they try to remain as unobtrusive as possible. They've gotten so good at it that I usually forget they're even there."

Merlin breathed a sigh of relief, surprised at how much the tense atmosphere in the palace had been getting to him. Then he spun back to the board, ready to practice front dives. Gwen would teach him to do backwards dives once he mastered the standard kind.

Morgana had gone to lounge in a chair, checking her phone. Mum was reading her book and sipping fruit tea from a bottle. Merlin and Gwen kept laughing and jumping, flipping and splatting (well, Merlin splatted; Gwen always entered the water with the elegance of a ballerina). It was the happiest Merlin had felt in a long time. His magic was strangely content, too. For once it wasn't trying to burst out of him. He knew he could probably encourage it to help him master diving, to show off for Gwen. But there was something grounding about concentrating on his physical movements, analyzing where he had gone wrong (more water up the nose, dang it!), and working to improve. He decided to tell his mum how peaceful he felt: maybe he could come back regularly and it could help keep his magic in line?

Perhaps three-quarters of an hour passed in this pleasant way. Morgana had, at some point, cranked up some music through a hidden speaker system. Merlin had just done his best attempt at a somersault yet: he'd gotten all the way around before crashing into the pool, still wrapped up like a ball. It wasn't perfect, but hey, progress! He was under the water when he heard a strange popping sound. He thought that maybe it was water in his ears. But then there were splashes around him, and suddenly Gwen and Morgana were both in the pool with him. He broke to the surface in time to see a couple of security guards running across the pool deck with his mum. And then his mum was jumping into the pool too, even though she was still wearing a sun dress.

Merlin spluttered "What—!" but Morgana shushed him.

"Quiet!" she hissed. "Get over here to this corner with me! Keep your head down!" The four of them—Merlin, Morgana, Gwen, and Mum—cowered in the corner of the pool, bodies completely underwater and heads below the edge of the pool deck, as sheltered as possible from anything coming from the direction the guards had been running towards. Other security personnel pulled out their guns and stood at various positions around the pool house. Merlin could tell there were others running around outside the glass walls, on the roof of the palace. After a moment, everything went still. Even the music had gone silent.

There was a sudden flurry of steps, more popping, a bone-shaking explosion, and then the air directly over their heads burst into a pulsing green sheet of light. Merlin jerked his head up, shocked at the blatant use of magic, then looked around wildly, trying to locate the source. He didn't think he had done it, but then again, magical things sometimes just happened without his knowledge or consent.

He needn't have worried. As soon as he glanced at Morgana, he saw her eyes glowing golden, pulsing in time with the green shield. Merlin had never seen anyone else perform magic before. He gasped at the beauty of it.

They stayed there, under the protection of the green light, for perhaps a quarter-hour more. Merlin had so many questions, but didn't want to distract Morgana from her task. He also wanted to be ready in case she tired before the danger has passed. Since they were in the deep end of the pool, they clung to the edge as best they could. They didn't want to grab on top of the pool deck with their hands to hold themselves up, worried that they would be exposed. Instead they treaded water, occasionally ducking under, and tried to cling to the wall of the pool. Merlin's mum had been wearing clunky sandals, which he managed to unstrap for her. Her long flowy sundress made it hard for her to stay above water. He worked to help her as best he could. It would have been easy with magic, but despite Morgana's revelation, he wasn't comfortable with giving away his own abilities. But he was ready, should they be needed.

Eventually some of the palace guards came over to them, yelling, "It's all clear, your Highness!" Only then did Morgana drop the shield, and they began to climb out of the pool. Merlin made sure to help his mum first, whose wet dress was clinging round her legs and making it hard for her to move them. He then dove down to the bottom, where Mum's sandals had fallen. He wasn't sure if they'd been ruined by the water, but figured she'd want them back anyway.

As he tossed the shoes onto the deck, he realized he was shaking. There was a strange tingling from his arms that stretched across his back. His breaths were shallow, and he realized he wasn't getting enough oxygen. He grabbed into the side of the pool and took a couple deep breaths before hauling himself out of the water.

As soon as he did, he was hit with an icy wind. Then the shivers attacked with a vengeance. He wrapped his arms round his torso and stood frozen, trying to take in the scene. An entire wall had shattered, and shards of glass were scattered everywhere he looked. Some were as large as his hand, some smaller like marbles, but much of it had blown inwards in drifts of powdered glass. It looked like snow had fallen over many of the plants, sparkling amongst all the fairy lights, which were, surprisingly, still lit. It would have been beautiful if he could stop thinking about how deadly those shards could have been.

Around the area he could see some of the princess's security guards with rivulets of blood streaking down their faces. Apparently not everyone had been protected from the explosion. One guard had her hands pressed over her eyes, blood seeping out from underneath, and Merlin wondered if there were bits of glass slicing through her eyeballs. The idea was nauseating. He closed his eyes and bent over at the waist, trying to keep the contents of his stomach where they belonged. As he did, he felt the warm tingling of magic, flowing down his legs and away. He felt colder than he had before. But when he looked up again, the security guard had lowered her bloodied hands and was staring dazedly at the scene around her, eyes intact.

None of their group had moved after climbing out of the pool, being barefoot and surrounded by broken glass. They stood there completely soaked as the winter wind curled around them, looking to pull away any remaining body heat.

The room flooded with guards and other personnel (who were—surprise!—all conveniently wearing shoes). One of them came scurrying from a side room, bringing a stack of fluffy-looking towels. Merlin wrapped his around himself as tightly as possible, but the shivering didn't abate. His teeth were chattering together so fiercely he worried one might chip.

It took longer for someone to bring them footwear. Their shoes were covered with shattered glass just waiting for the opportunity to cut into tender flesh. Someone finally arrived with an armful of flip flops, which was as close to a one-size-fits-all kind of shoe that they were likely to find, and dumped them in a pile. They all grabbed at the shoes. Merlin tried, but couldn't get the second one on to his foot.

He was frozen and wet, shaken, tired, and confused; he needed shoes so he could walk away to somewhere warm, and the stupid flip flop wouldn't go on his foot right. Something in him snapped. He screamed at that shoe, slammed it against the pool deck three times, and then chucked it across the room as far as he could throw it. Tears prickled in his eyes, and he pressed his towel to them so no one would notice.

And then his mum was hugging him, whispering encouragements to him, kissing his hair as his face was hidden away. She asked gently about the flying flip flop and quickly realized he'd been trying to put on two left shoes. This struck him as hilarious, and suddenly he was laughing . . . and laughing and laughing . . . laughing hysterically . . . and not stopping. Tears were streaming down his face as he laughed on and on. He was vaguely aware of his mum getting a second shoe on him, then they were walking out to the warm hall, Merlin giggling like a lunatic the whole way.

The guards wanted them to go with them to the guard house to give statements and discuss "the mishap in the pool house", as they referred to it. But Mum refused, saying they would go nowhere till they were warm and properly clothed. Several of the guards looked ready to force compliance, but then Leon was there, ensuring that they had someone to accompany them back to their rooms. The escort would wait for them to dress properly before going to debrief.

Arthur was nowhere around when they made it back home. Merlin was grateful; he really didn't need any more added complications. Mum took Merlin straight to the bath and turned it on hot. He jumped in, swimming trunks and all. Mum disappeared for awhile, saying she was very sorry, but she really needed to go talk to the security guards, and would he be okay on his own for awhile? He nodded, still shaking, all of the hairs on his arms and legs standing on end at the shock of the heat against his frigid skin.

As he sat there, his brain unable to process much of anything, his magic kept leaching out into the water, acting in unpredictable ways. The water would heat up till it was painful on his skin and then rapidly turn lukewarm. It would bubble or swirl, send up great clouds of steam, and then go still. Merlin supposed it had something to do with his emotions, but was too tired to worry about it.

Eventually he was mostly warm again. He hauled himself out of the tub, left his swimming trunks in a puddle on the floor, wrapped himself in a towel, and went to find some clothes in the bedroom. He expected his mum to be there, but there was no sign of her. The bed looked inviting, with Kilgharrah, the stuffed dragon, peeking out at him from underneath the fleecy blankets. Merlin decided he'd cuddle up there just for a moment before getting dressed. He was asleep as soon as his head settled on the pillow.


	11. In which Merlin meets the king

Chapter Eleven: In which Merlin meets the king and Arthur is not a prat

* * *

Merlin awoke to the delightful sensation of someone poking him in the back of his neck. He tried whacking whatever it was with his arm, but was too groggy to give it anything more than a half-hearted effort.

An obnoxiously loud voice called, "Wake up, Sleeping Beauty!" right next to his ear. Merlin jerked up to sitting, so startled that a framed portrait of him and his mum fell off the wall on the far side of the room. Arthur—for who else could it be?—jumped at the crashing sound. Merlin would have laughed if he hadn't also startled at the sound (which was, frankly, ridiculous, since it was his magic which had sent the frame flying, anyway).

There was a short moment in which they both pretended that they were not, in fact, frightened little mice. Then Merlin remembered what Arthur had said to him.

"Hey! I'm not Sleeping Beauty!" (Not his best retort ever, but then he had just been rather forcibly yanked out of a deep sleep.)

Arthur smirked at him. "You're certainly no beauty. Well, come on, then, Sleepyhead, time to get up. The king wants to see you."

Whatever Merlin had been expecting from Arthur, that was certainly not it. "What?" he squeaked. Embarrassed, he took a moment to close his mouth; he figured the open-mouthed astonished look would just give Arthur more fodder for teasing him.

Arthur spoke slowly and clearly, as if to a toddler. "The . . . king . . . is . . . waiting . . . for . . . you. Right now. In the sitting room."

Merlin jumped out of bed in a panic, forgetting he was stark naked.

"Whoa!" Arthur shouted. "I don't need to see that!"

But Merlin was already running to the wardrobe for clothing, his heart pounding at the thought of the king waiting for him. "Sorry! But this _is_ my room. Where's Mum?" He really needed Mum!

"She's gone to talk to Security some more. She'll be back later."

The king. He must know. He must know about the magic. The guard must have told him about being magically healed. Merlin knew, rationally, that King Uther was sympathetic to magic, at least in private, but—Merlin didn't know if that sympathy would extend to him.

Merlin spun towards Arthur. "I can't go out there without Mum!"

Arthur put his hands on his hips. "You can, and you will. I promise my father doesn't bite. Though he doesn't take kindly to direct disobedience. So you'd best hurry."

Merlin had on a clean, albeit wrinkled, shirt and some slacks. He looked around desperately for his dress shoes; he didn't think the king would smile on barefeet, and he needed to make the best impression he could. Not that he was under any illusions that it would be a good impression, with his shabby clothes and hair that had dried in shocking angles while he slept. But he at least needed to try.

He was ready far more quickly than he wished. And then he was walking with Arthur out to the sitting room, trying frantically to remember the proper etiquette for meeting the king.

#

Merlin dragged his feet all the way to the sitting room. When he got there, King Uther was sitting on one of the white sofas near the Christmas tree, watching the flames flickering in the fireplace. The glow from the fire and the lights on the tree made his face look softer than Merlin was expecting, almost kind. Merlin's heart jumped with the tiniest bit of hope: maybe, just maybe, Merlin wouldn't be immediately sent off to the torture chambers of doom.

He walked over a bit more confidently, stood by the tree, and waited for the king to acknowledge him. When the king looked up, Merlin bowed his head and said, "Your Majesty." (He only stuttered the tiniest bit; Mum would be proud.)

King Uther appeared to be old and tired at first glance, with fine wrinkles and silver hair. But after a moment's consideration, Merlin could see an energy and strength in his movements. Merlin stood up straighter and tried to appear just as strong and confident.

The king looked at him for a long moment. Merlin tried not to fidget. Arthur came and stood next to him, looking completely at ease, the dollophead. Finally, the king said, "You are Merlin?"

"Yes, sir. I mean, Your Majesty. Er." Merlin gulped.

"I have heard good things about you, both from Gaius and my children. I hope they are not wrong." The king shot him a piercing look, and Merlin wondered if all his secrets were about to be laid bare. Could it be possible to feel more discomfited? Except he didn't seem to have been arrested yet; that was one good thing going for him. (A small voice in his head wondered if Arthur really had said good things about him? Merlin found that rather unlikely.)

"Er, thank you—"

"But I want you to know that I love my children more than all of Albion, and if you do anything to hurt them, I will make your life extremely unpleasant." The king spoke with a sharpness that spurred Merlin's heartbeat into a gallop.

"Understood, Your Majesty. . . ," Merlin whispered. "I would never—"

"That remains to be seen." The king clenched his jaw and frowned at him. Merlin held as still as possible. If the king wanted to keep interrupting him, Merlin was darn well going to let him.

"I did not know of Morgana's existence until she was nine years old. Her mother had kept her away from me, afraid that Morgana would inherit her own magical abilities, and concerned that if I found out, I would execute my own daughter.

"I only met Morgana after her mother's death. Morgana is a powerful Seer, and she had a vision of a future in which she was accepted as my daughter and magic was allowed throughout the kingdom. She was living with her aunt at that time, but ran away to come to the palace and meet me."

Merlin had questions buzzing around in his brain like a swarm of flies, but there was no way he was going to ask them. He was a little surprised the king was telling him such private information, but tried to look worthy of the confidence.

"I nearly had her arrested for fraud and magic both, but she stuck her chin out in a stubborn move which reminded me so much of Arthur. I had doubts, so I had all the paternity tests done. And it was true: I had a daughter, a brilliant, strong, magical daughter." The king's face took on a gentle, happy look. His love for the princess was clear to see.

"From that moment I swore that I would protect her no matter what came to pass. Part of that protection is to create a land where magic is accepted, even welcomed. But this has not happened yet. The Council has been very resistant to change."

The king continued with the ferocity of a shark snapping its jaws. "It is still not safe for anyone to know that the princess is a sorceress. But you saw her today."

Oh! Merlin was simultaneously relieved and horrified. He wasn't being accused of magic . . . he was being accused of being a potential snitch. How ironic it would be if he were to be arrested not for magic, but for betraying someone with magic.

He couldn't help but interrupt. "Oh, I would never let anyone know about Morgana. . . !" The king glared at him even more severely, if that were possible, and Merlin gulped. ". . . I mean, er, the princess. Your Majesty. Sir. The princess has been nothing but kind to me. Besides. . ." Merlin's voice trailed off. He had been just about ready to tell the king his own magical secret. That would be one way to prove he had no ill-will towards magical people, right?

The king gave him a knowing look. Adrenaline coursed through Merlin as he came to the realization that maybe the king _did_ know all of his secrets. Merlin had to fight very hard to hold still, to keep his feet planted firmly on the floor . . . to not run away crying for Mummy, a voice suspiciously like Arthur's added.

Then the king smiled at him. "If I thought you would cause any actual harm to my children in any way, you would not be standing here now. Just see that you don't, or you will wish you'd never been born. Agreed?"

Merlin let out a shaky breath. "Agreed. I would never, I promise."

"And make sure to keep the events in the pool house to yourself for now. The media knows there was a security intrusion, but I don't want them to know the extent, or that sorcerers were involved."

Merlin nodded. "Yes, your Majesty."

The king stood up. "Wonderful. Don't disappoint me. Happy Christmas." He strode across the room and was gone.

As soon as the king left, a couple of security guards came into the room and took up their posts along the walls. Merlin sank into the white sofa the king had just vacated, staring at the fire, overwhelmed. After a moment, he felt someone sit down next to him, and looked to see Arthur there.

"Arthur?" he said hesitantly. He really wasn't in the mood for any pratliness right now, and hoped the prince would realize it, for once.

"Yes, Merlin?" The voice that responded was very calm, compassionate even. Oh thank goodness.

"Why are there people blowing up the pool house? No one will ever tell me what's going on. I think if I'm going to get killed, I at least have the right to know why." His voice started to quiver a little, and with horror he realised that his hands were shaking too.

Arthur reached one of his hands over to grab Merlins'. It was uncharacteristically sweet of him. Merlin suddenly wished he could throw himself into Arthur's lap and have a big cuddle, but figured that would probably be pushing it. Arthur kept hold of his hands and started rubbing them a bit, and Merlin could feel calmness settling down upon him again, slowly, the way a snow flurry might cover a field, flake by flake by tiny flake. The fire cracked, the lights on the tree blinked merrily, and Merlin found he could breathe freely again.

Arthur gave his hand a squeeze, and then began to speak. "The people today, I imagine, were just more of the usual: supposed magic users who think death and destruction is the way to bring change. It's so frustrating, because every time something like this happens, it makes the possibility of change less likely. My father doesn't have the absolute power they like to think he does. Though even if he did, killing his children would probably not be the way to get him to change his mind."

Merlin wrinkled his forehead and bit at his lip. "I thought the violence had calmed down after the abolition of the death penalty? It certainly wasn't in the news anymore. . . ." News concerning magic was about the only kind of news Merlin paid attention to.

Arthur nodded, pleased. "That's what Father wanted you to think. The threat of violence makes sorcerers seem evil in the eyes of the people. And if people think sorcerers are evil, they're not going to support any changes in the laws against magic."

"Can't you let them know that you're on their side?"

"It's not that easy. If Father comes straight out and says he supports magic, the council will claim he was enchanted. If he sends out private envoys to the magical community, they will think it's a trap."

Merlin yawned. It had been a long day, and even with his short nap, he felt exhausted. And hungry. But he had a few more questions.

"Could you please explain to me what the 'Collins incident' is? Gaius said something about it, and I got the feeling that it had something to do with all the security around here."

"Thomas Collins was the last person executed before the ban on capital punishment. He claimed to be a magical freedom fighter, and assassinated two council members—"

"Yes, I know, that was in the news." He wasn't an idiot, no matter how many times Arthur said he was. "But why is that causing problems now?"

"If you'd stop interrupting, I'll explain it. Officially, he was executed for being guilty of kidnapping, terrorism, murder . . . and magic. Although magic was still technically a capital offense, no one was ever executed solely for using magic. But it was still listed as a reason for execution.

"Collins' mother showed up to the execution, as was her right as a member of the family. She protested loudly to all that would listen that her son was no criminal, but being executed merely for being a sorcerer. The officials asked her to sit and be quiet if she wished to remain. But she did not sit and watch, but used violent magic to try and free her son.

"In the end she severely injured three soldiers and two other personnel, but did not manage to free her son. They managed to apprehend the mother by stunning her with electro-shock guns. By all accounts, she regained consciousness just in time to see her son hung. She started screaming for retribution, something about an eye for an eye, a son for a son, and all that nonsense. Then she went out to recruit other disenchanted sorcerers. No pun intended, of course. She doesn't seem too picky about the whole "son" thing, either, as there have been attempts on Morgana's life as well."

Merlin perked up at that. "What? Aren't you both scared?"

Arthur scoffed, but squeezed Merlin's hand a little tighter. "Scared? How could I be, when Father keeps me locked up and surrounded by guards all the time?"

Merlin gaped at him. "But today . . . the pool house . . . that was a really close call! If you'd been there—"

"Really, it wasn't that close, Merlin. Seems to me like the guards were all there, did their jobs, and everyone's fine."

"Thanks to Morgana . . . ," Merlin muttered, and then thought of his own magic escaping and the injured guard who seemed suddenly improved.

Arthur paid him no heed. "You get used to it, living here. Father's got a real overprotective streak. But I heard they apprehended all of the suspects in today's attack. So things should be safer again for awhile. Maybe Father will change his mind about soccer with Lance. . . ."

Merlin just stared at him in disbelief. It was like Arthur was saying it'd be safe to go play in an enclosure with a bunch of ravenous tigers. Ridiculous.

"You're ridiculous! Do you have a death wish?"

Arthur sighed. "Merlin. I can't live my life freaking out that every thing I do might be the last thing I do. I'd turn into a miserable mess, hiding under my bed all the time and never actually living. That might almost be worse than being dead. I'd be scared and bored and horribly jealous of everyone who ever managed to go somewhere that was not under a bed. If I die, so be it, but at least I'll have been happy."

Sometime during this little speech, Merlin had gotten up from the couch and started pacing the room. His brain was roiling with thoughts, trying to make sense of everything he had been hearing. He wandered over to the Christmas stockings hanging over the fireplace (one for Arthur, one for him) and removed and replaced them several times. Then he saw the bowl of hazelnuts on the end table with the silver lever nutcracker, and started cracking nuts one by one, without eating any of them. Arthur watched him with an amused smile on his face.

"If you're not actually going to eat any of those, you could send them my way."

Merlin looked up, startled, them looked down at the pile of nuts and shells spreading out in a mess all over the end table.

"Oh, um, sure." He grabbed a handful and passed them over to Arthur. He continued, "I just, er, need time to think. Mostly I think you're nuts—"

Arthur groaned.

Merlin was undeterred. "Hey, if you can do it, I can do it too. So—mostly I think you're nuts—pun slightly intended—but you sound strangely wise. Like you might have a point. Maybe. Is it bedtime yet?"

Arthur reached over to where Merlin was still hunched over, cracking nuts, and pet his hair as if he were a dog. He drawled out in his best baby talk voice, "Aw, is the poor little baby elf ready for bed? Aren't you supposed to be getting ready to help Father Christmas on his big night?"

Merlin whacked Arthur's hand away. "You're a prat. I guess we'll see if Santa leaves you anything tonight."

The door to the main hallway opened without warning, and both of them startled. Arthur's more scared than he wants to admit, Merlin realized. He was surprised that thought didn't please him as much as he expected it to.

It was only Merlin's mum at the door, home from whatever interrogation the security personnel had deemed necessary. She appeared tired, older than Merlin remembered, but oh-so-welcome.

"Mum!" Merlin ran over to her, and she gave him a hug, overly tight, not at all comfortable, but wonderfully reassuring. He didn't want to let go.

He kept his head tucked into her shoulder while she told Arthur it was time for him to go to dinner with his father. Despite the attack, there was still going to be a Christmas Eve gathering for a few of the king's guests. Merlin looked up and could see that Arthur appeared less-than-thrilled. But what did he have to complain about? Arthur hadn't nearly been shredded to bits by flying glass, nor had he survived a first meeting with a king who might order his imminent arrest. All he had to do was go to a Christmas party with extravagant food and important guests. How tough could it be?

Arthur wished them both a happy Christmas, then went off to his rooms to prepare. Merlin's mum was technically still on holiday and didn't have to accompany Arthur that evening. Instead she took Merlin into their suite and fixed a quick meal of noodles with chunks of pre-cooked chicken. She apologized that it wasn't appropriate for Christmas Eve, but she was tired and they were going to the king's Christmas feast tomorrow, anyway. Merlin didn't care. He loved noodles, he loved chicken, and he loved his mum.

They were both exhausted. As soon as they had cleaned up their dinner, they prepared for bed. Usually they stayed up late on Christmas Eve, playing games and watching movies. But as Merlin slipped quickly into sleep, all he thought was how this way Father Christmas could come early.


	12. In which Arthur and Merlin are naughty

Chapter Twelve: In which Arthur and Merlin are naughty

* * *

Merlin woke early on Christmas Day. Sometime around five a.m. he slowly became aware that he was brooding instead of sleeping. By the time he realised he was awake, he'd spent a good chunk of time chasing thoughts in circles around his brain. He kept picturing the shattered glass wall, imagining what it would have looked like when it was exploding, what it would have felt like if it had hit them . . . he remembered the green shield—a _magic_ shield—that had kept him from seeing the explosion. He recalled the guards, some with blood on faces and hands. . . . He wondered what had really happened with the guard who had had her hands over bloody eyes. Had she been badly hurt? Had he helped her? He lacked so much knowledge about magic; it was mostly just a giant accident waiting to happen. Mum always said it wouldn't do anything that he wouldn't want it to do. Merlin wasn't positive about that.

He remembered his visit with King Uther. It was silly, but he'd felt more frightened talking to the king than he had cowering in the pool, hiding under Morgana's shield. Maybe then he'd been too shocked to feel much of anything?

And then there was Arthur, so brave—or was it stupid? Maybe both? Maybe Merlin should try being a bit more courageous—less hiding, more doing. . . . He could become a magical activist, prove to the public that magic is not evil. Somehow he didn't think Mum would appreciate that very much. If the government didn't lock him up for the rest of his life, she certainly would.

He grew uncomfortable as he lay there in bed, too tense to fall back asleep but too sleepy to get up. He needed to roll over and stretch out, but was afraid he'd wake his mum. He could hear her breathing quietly next to him, and thought it'd be a poor Christmas present to disturb her so early. He knew she would have snuck out of bed after he was asleep last night to "help" Santa Claus leave presents for him and Arthur.

George had shown up a few days prior with a sack of small gifts and the request for Mum to leave them in the prince's stocking without his knowledge on Christmas Night. George had looked dubious as he said this, as though stuffing items into a sock in the middle of the night was a highly tactical stealth operation, not something parents everywhere had managed for centuries without receiving advanced training of any kind. Mum had thanked George graciously, but Merlin just asked where were the presents that Santa would leave under the tree? George had a very precise explanation about how Santa Claus delivered most of the royal childrens' presents to the king's chambers. The king had long since learned, however, that if the children had immediate access to stockings filled with gifts, it would delay them and grant his Majesty an hour's more rest. George had continued on a bit, extolling the virtues of the king, who deserved better than to be disturbed by rambunctious children (he stared particularly hard at Merlin while he said this). Merlin barely paid attention; he had glanced into the sack of gifts for Arthur and was trying his best to fend off the attack of jealousy that had hit him.

Merlin tried not to succumb to jealousy as a general rule, but it had been difficult since moving to the palace. Arthur had so many awesome things and didn't seem to appreciate it at all. He could imagine Mum's voice reminding him that Arthur didn't get to leave the palace to play soccer, that he didn't have a mother, that he had to live up to so many expectations. But Merlin was brooding about the miniature programmable robots he had seen in the bag of gifts and paid his conscience no attention.

Merlin jerked himself out of his fretting and decided it'd be best if he forced himself out of bed and left his mum in peace. He'd go see what Santa had left in his stocking this year.

He moved carefully, opening and closing doors gently and muffling his footsteps. He thought the sitting room would be dark, but instead found it partially lit with one of Arthur's security contingent on duty, standing by the external door. That put a dent in his plans to check out the contents of Arthur's stocking as well as his own.

Merlin nodded at the guard on his way to the fireplace. The fire was out, leaving the grate filled with ashes, soot, and logs burnt down to charcoal. The Christmas tree was dark, but Merlin used his foot to press the button to light it up as he passed by. Both stockings had been filled and placed on the floor. Merlin's contained the usual: new socks and underwear (he'd long since given up the argument that Santa didn't run a clothing factory at the North Pole; it never seemed to make a difference); nuts, some chocolate candy, an orange. There was also a comic book he'd been wanting and a new card game.

He glanced at Arthur's stocking, dying to know what was inside, wishing he could have a go at the miniature robots, wondering if Arthur would even notice if Merlin liberated a few of his gifts. . . . He thought he might be able to get away with it, as the guard's vision was mostly blocked by the sofa. Besides, the guard really wasn't being paid to protect Christmas stockings, was he?

Merlin sighed, but left Arthur's stocking alone. He grabbed his comic book ( _Heroes of Albion #113: The Curse of the Unicorn_ ) and went to lounge on the sofa to read for awhile. As he plopped onto the cushions, he noticed that the end table held more than the dish of hazelnuts that had been there last night. He hadn't noticed in the dim light, but he now saw a plate of chocolate chip cookies (the kind from the palace kitchens; decent but nothing like the cookies Mum could make) and a glass of milk, helpfully placed in a bowl of mostly-melted ice cubes. There was also a sheet of paper lying on the table. Merlin read it by the dim light of the Christmas tree.

It said:

 _Dear Elf-Boy,_

 _I thought about addressing this letter to Santa Claus, but decided that he wasn't coming this year, since you're here to do his work for him. I'm sure you understand that being the prince, I'm entitled to the very best of what the North Pole has to offer. Make sure you don't disappoint._

 _I hear that Santa Claus is rather fond of milk and cookies. No wonder he keeps getting stuck in chimneys. I assume Santa's elves also appreciate such offerings. Eat up, Elf-Boy; you could really do with a bit more meat on your bones._

 _Happy Christmas!_

 _HRH Prince Arthur Pendragon of Camelot_

Merlin knew this was Arthur's idea of a joke. He knew he was meant to laugh and then plan revenge. But he was in a self-pitying sort of mood and wasn't amused. He grabbed a cookie and dunked it in the still-cold milk and chomped on it, thinking it might make him feel better. But it didn't. So he had another and another till they were gone. He was still mopey, just now he had a bit of a stomachache too.

What a cabbagehead that prat was. Always getting the best of everything, and then rubbing it in. Thinking Merlin was there to follow the whims of the royal dollophead. Teasing him about his ears and his scrawniness. Never sharing anything, just barging into Merlin's life whenever he felt like it. If Merlin really were one of Santa's elves, he'd make darn sure the spoiled prat got put onto Santa's naughty list.

Merlin felt the tingly warmth that rose up inside whenever his magic got a mind of its own. He immediately squeezed his eyes shut and hoped desperately that his magic hadn't just decided to do anything that would be noticed by the (bored-looking and hopefully inattentive) security guard. When the warmth disappeared, followed by the usual wave of cold, Merlin opened his eyes to examine the room, to see if the magic had done something or if it had just been fizzing a bit in response to his emotions.

Nothing appeared amiss. Merlin took it as a hint that he should calm down a bit, and decided to read his new comic book. There were a couple of presents waiting for him under the tree, but he had to wait for Mum before he could open those. So he stretched out on the sofa, determined to enjoy the adventures of Sir Goofus and Hawk, his clumsy-yet-brilliant squire.

Once engrossed in the story, he lost awareness of the real world and time slid by quickly. He was just at the part where Hawk and Goofus were arguing over who would get to drink the poison that would end the unicorn's curse (Merlin thought that unlikely. . . . If it were he and Arthur, he'd happily insist "after you!"), when the dollophead himself jumped onto Merlin, yelling, "Happy Christmas, Elf-Boy!", scaring the crap out of him.

Merlin flailed in alarm, somehow managing to hit Arthur across the face with his comic book. At the same time, one of the lights on the Christmas tree popped with a puff of smoke, and the string it was on went dark. Oops. Merlin was relieved that at least nothing had caught on fire.

"Honestly, Merlin. If I were an evil sorcerer that snuck up on you, your brilliant plan would be to hit them on the nose with a magazine?" Arthur smoothed out the collar of his silk dress shirt from where it had gotten rumpled in the scuffle. (Merlin still couldn't believe anyone in their right mind would get so dressed up before breakfast.)

Merlin retrieved his comic from where it had fallen on the floor. "You're just lucky I didn't think you were a sorcerer; I could've taken you apart with less than one blow, remember?"

Arthur reached over and ran his fingers through Merlin's untidy hair. "Still as imaginative as ever, I see."

Merlin scowled at him. "Still as pratty as ever, I see."

"You'd get bored if I weren't here to keep you on your toes." Arthur shot him his cheesiest grin, and Merlin felt himself melting, suddenly (surprisingly) willing to put up with a lot if it meant seeing more of that ridiculously endearing smile.

Arthur pushed off the couch and reached for his stocking. "Let's see what Santa and/or his elves brought me this year." Merlin sat up, eager to see too. Arthur reached his hand into the stocking, then pulled out—a sooty lump of half-burnt wood. They both goggled at it. Arthur reached in, a bit more carefully this time, and pulled out more chips of burnt wood in a cloud of ash. His face was quickly turning from baffled to angry.

After a moment of tense silence, Merlin understood. He burst out laughing. "Santa left you coal in your stocking! I knew you had to be on the naughty list!"

Arthur glared at him. "Merlin. Don't be idiotic. This is not coal, just the remains of last night's fire."

Merlin couldn't stop giggling. "It's charcoal, you cabbagehead. Maybe Santa had to make do with what he found when he got here."

Arthur's clenched jaw slowly relaxed as he took on a more thoughtful look. "Or maybe Santa's little helper thought it'd be be funny and is enjoying himself at my expense. . . ."

Merlin stopped the laughing. "Wait, are you saying that I—?"

"Who else could it be, _Mer_ lin? You think Galahad over there. . . ," Arthur waved his hand towards the guard by the door, ". . .would have done it?"

"Might have done," Merlin muttered. But he knew Arthur wasn't wrong. Merlin may not have actually reached into the fireplace, but his magic had done the job for him. And there was no way he could blame it on his magic or on an intruder without the palace security staff going ballistic. He rather doubted they'd accept Santa Claus as the culprit.

(Merlin had a sudden fantasy in which the security guards arrested Santa for criminal trespassing. Good thing for Santa that he doesn't actually exist. Of course, that just leaves Merlin at the scene of the crime.)

Then Merlin had a distressing thought: where had the original contents of Arthur's stocking gone? If they had vanished into the ether. . . . Sometimes he wished his magic had a corporeal form, just so he could strangle it. Merlin had hoped that Arthur might be influenced by the Christmas spirit and at least let him look at those tiny programmable robots. But if they had all disappeared. . . .

Merlin lost himself in thought, which, upon reflection, was inadvisable when there was an irritated prat nearby. He wasn't paying much attention when Arthur said, "I think I'll return this lovely gift to you." But he snapped back to reality when his face was smeared with a handful of ashes. Merlin wasn't proud, but there may have been a moment when he shrieked like a little girl.

"Stop, you heathen!" he spluttered, rubbing his eyes and mouth on the sleeves of his pyjamas. His eyes were watering and his mouth had turned to mud.

"Don't be such a girl, Merlin." Arthur squinted, pretending to examine him. "Though you do make a fetching Cinderella. Have you come to fall in love with the handsome prince?"

Merlin inched closer to Arthur's stocking, which had been abandoned on the floor. "Do let me know if you've seen one around." He grabbed a handful of ash, soot, and charcoal remnants and lobbed it at Arthur's face. It mostly missed, splattering over his silk shirt and the white sofa.

Arthur stared at him in shock, then lunged towards the fireplace, grabbing a fistful of cinders and flinging them at Merlin. After that, it was chaos. Ashes, dirt, charcoal, soot: it was all flying across the room in a furious barrage. Merlin spared a glance at Galahad, wondering if he would break into the melee and haul him away. (He wouldn't touch the prince, of that there was no doubt.) But Galahad just stood there, motionless as always, albeit with a bit of an amused curve to his lips. Merlin took this as tacit permission to renew his assault. At one point Merlin ran out of sooty ammunition and upgraded to hazelnuts; Arthur returned the favor with the contents of a hard candy dish. Eventually Arthur grabbed the cushions of the sofa and lobbed then at Merlin, who tossed them right back. They laughed and shrieked, spluttered and ducked.

Merlin thought it was great fun. That is, till he heard the sound of someone unlocking the external door.


	13. In which the king is not pleased

Chapter Thirteen: In which the king is not pleased

* * *

The door to the outside hallway burst open and a loud, resounding voice called out, "Happy Christmas, Arth—" before trailing off into complete silence.

The king—for that was who it was—dropped his mouth open in shock. Merlin stared at him from where he was trying to rub bits of charcoal into Arthur's hair. His brain slowly caught up with the situation, and his hands finally got the message that perhaps they should stop defiling the heir to the throne.

Arthur pushed Merlin the rest of the way off, and then stood up quickly to face his father. Merlin remained sprawled on the floor, paralyzed with sudden visions of all the different ways the king might kill him. There were the mundane ways, of course—who didn't enjoy a good burning; the kids could come out and roast marshmallows—but there were probably all sorts of other creative ways to dispose of someone who had been caught assaulting the Prince of Camelot with ashes and cinders. Death by leeches came to mind.

"Father," said Arthur, voice shaking only a little bit. He was standing stiff as a board with his hands twisting together behind his back.

"Arthur," the king said, but then the silence stretched on intolerably as he examined the entirety of the scene. Merlin could see that they had managed to cover just about every thing in the room with a layer of soot. There were particularly vivid spots where a chunk of charcoal had been thrown into a painting on the wall, the (probably priceless) oriental rug, or, God help him, the snow-white divan, which also happened to be missing several of its cushions. The Christmas tree looked like it was covered in black snow, which was actually sort of brilliant, in a we've-accidentally-stepped-into-an-alternate-dimension kind of way. Then Merlin looked at Arthur and saw his Christmas suit was ruined: the white silk shirt a swirl of greys and blacks, buttons hanging loose, a rip in the slacks. Merlin had a fierce and sudden wish that he had stumbled into an alternate dimension, and could somehow find an easy way back to the right one.

Merlin must have been gawping like the idiot Arthur always claimed he was, because the king rolled his eyes at him and said, "Oh good heavens, boy, stand up. I'm not going to hang you up in the dungeons by your ears, though you sorely tempt me. For one, we don't have any dungeons. And two, I imagine Gaius wouldn't be well-pleased. Though I doubt he's going to be well-pleased by this little incident, either."

Merlin stood up rather quickly, causing a small cloud of ash and soot to waft up into the air. It tickled his nose and coated the inside of his throat, giving rise to a short-lived coughing fit. He found some tissue in one of his pockets and tried to use it to cover his mouth. He ended up having to blow his nose to clear the ash out of his airways, and the tissue came away disturbingly black.

As far as possible second meetings with the king went, this was the absolute worst. His mother was going to flay him alive. That is, if there were anything left of him after the king had his fun.

Oh crap, his mum. What was he going to tell his mum? That he was the reason that she was fired from the best job she ever had? There was no way he would be able to face her it'd that happened. He'd have to run away, rely on his magic for survival, pray no one ever caught him at it. He'd be a homeless orphan.

Merlin's mouth suddenly burst open and it didn't know how to stop. "Oh please, Sir King, don't fire my mum! None of this was her fault. It's all my fault and I'm so sorry and I'll do whatever it takes to make up for it but Mum loves this job and she says it's the best thing that ever happened to her, after me, of course, but now that I've done this she'll realize that I'm not the best thing that ever happened to her at all, so this job goes back to actually being the best, and please please please don't sack her. I'll do anything, I swear, and I'll leave and go be a homeless orphan on the streets somewhere, but just let Mum stay please. Sir. I mean, Your Majesty. Sir."

Merlin was starting to feel light-headed and overly hot. He stopped to take a deep breath, and then looked back up at the king, who seemed to have an amused little smirk on his face.

"I'm very pleased to see you taking responsibility for your actions, Mr Emrys. Have no fear for your mother's job. I have been quite pleased with her, and I can clearly see that this . . . incident . . . has nothing to do with her. However, it certainly does have something to do with you."

"And with me, Father," Arthur added. "I'm actually the one who, er, instigated the mess. I know there is no reasonable excuse for such behaviour, and I apologize."

The king looked a bit shocked, but paused to think for a moment. Then he spoke. "Well, Arthur, much as I abhor this display of childish behaviour, I am pleased to see you taking responsibility and not just blaming Mr Emrys here. But the two of you will have to make reparations."

Merlin nodded his head eagerly, so relieved that his mother's job was safe that any other punishment sounded like a wonderful alternative.

"Yes, Father, I understand. I assume you'll want to take the cost of cleaning out of my allowance." Arthur appeared to be quite solemn and deferential, bowing his head before the king, but Merlin thought he saw a glint in his eye, just the tiniest hint of victory, that they would escape this with barely a scratch.

"Yes, Arthur, that is an excellent idea. I was also hoping that you and Mr Emrys here would be able to do the cleaning yourselves, so that you'd better appreciate the consequences of your actions. But frankly, I don't trust you to do a good enough job. I think that without some professional intervention, some of the items in here would be permanently destroyed. So yes, you'll have to pay for some experienced cleaners. But I also want the two of you to have some understanding of the work it takes to clean up large messes. So you will both work in the kitchen after the Christmas feast, helping the staff to wash the dishes. Yes, yes, that'll work nicely. I heard that there was a bad case of influenza going around amongst the kitchen workers, so I'm sure they'd appreciate the help."

"But, Father! You can't be serious! Lady Helen is set to sing after the Christmas feast. I've been looking forward to her performance for months!" The expression on Arthur's face was one of pure disbelief.

"Yes, I'm sure she'll be simply divine. But you clearly have a lesson to learn, Arthur, and this is how I plan to teach it to you. I expect the two of you to go straight to the kitchens as soon as the last course is finished. You will stay there helping until the last employee finishes and goes home. And if I hear any more complaining about this, you will start your shift before the feast and have no food at all. Is that clear?"

Arthur looked livid, but still managed to get out a mostly civil "yes, sir". Merlin just kept nodding his head, not trusting himself to speak.

The king then smiled widely at them. "I came to wish you a happy Christmas, Arthur. And to you too, of course, Mr Emrys. You'll pardon me for not staying. I'm afraid there is no place clean enough for me to sit." Then he walked towards Arthur, and reached out as if to give him a hug, took in the state of his clothing, and aborted the attempt.

"You know, when Gaius told me it might be good for Arthur to have another boy around, this isn't exactly what I had in mind. I do hope the two of you can try to limit yourselves to less costly mistakes in the future. Happy Christmas."

And with that, the king swept out of the room, leaving two astonished boys behind him.

Merlin was as pleased as he could be after being reprimanded by the king. He never dreamed he'd get off so easy. An afternoon in the kitchens? No big deal. That was infinitely better then being strung up by his ears or ending up a homeless orphan.

Arthur, however, was another story. He started pounding around the room, punching at ornamental pillows with an intensity that made Merlin blink. Merlin could practically see the smoke coming out of his ears.

"You might want to calm down before your brain catches on fire," Merlin said. "I'm not sure how flammable turnips are, but I wouldn't take any chances, if I were you."

This was apparently the wrong thing to say, because Arthur swirled to face him with a maniacal look on his face. "You! This is all your fault! With your stupid ears and your stupid coal and your stupid insolence! You are a class-A idiot who has just destroyed my Christmas!"

Merlin was a bit offended by that. His ears weren't that stupid, and even if they were, it wasn't nice to say so out loud.

"Oh, come on, don't be all dramatic. It won't be that bad. Working in the kitchens could be more fun than sitting through some stuffy Christmas concert." Merlin knew his voice had a bit of a pleading tone to it, but he was starting to feel more and more uncomfortable with the way Arthur was glaring at him. He knew the two of them hadn't gotten off to the best start, but he thought they had been becoming . . . well, not exactly friends, but something like that, maybe. Now it looked like the only thing keeping Arthur from squashing him into a Merlin pancake was fear of facing further repercussions from his father.

Arthur took a deep breath in an attempt to regain control. He clenched his fists, released them, and said, "Merlin. I have been looking forward to this concert for months. If you had any cultural understanding or artistic sensibilities at all, you would be as devastated as I am. Furthermore, there is no way I can be seen working in the kitchens like some poor commoner. My friends will mock me for the rest of my life—"

"I thought you were too much of a prat to actually have any friends?" Merlin asked, but Arthur completely ignored him.

"—and the employees will never respect me again. And just wait till someone snaps a picture of me and sells it to the media. I can just see the headlines tomorrow: "Santa's Elves Turn Prince into Cinder-Fella".

Merlin sniggered a little. "Well, by looking at you now, they wouldn't be too wrong. Maybe I should go find my camera!"

Arthur took two steps closer to him. Merlin could see he was still shaking with anger. "I really don't want to see your stupid elf face again. And since this is technically my sitting room and you're intruding. . . . Get out!"

Merlin went. Quickly. But not running, because he didn't want to give Arthur the satisfaction of knowing he was rattled. He also didn't think Arthur's claim to the entirety of the sitting room was quite fair, since Merlin had to walk through it everyday to get to the rest of the palace. Besides, Santa had left a present or two for him under that tree. . . He'd just have to wait for Mum before trying to rescue his gifts.

Mum. Ugh. He'd have to go tell her. Better now than before she stumbled upon the scene of the crime. Hopefully she was awake and had already gotten a decent amount of coffee in her. Otherwise it would be like confessing to an angry bear.

#

Merlin's luck—such as it was—held. He found his mum relaxing with her coffee and working a crossword, a clear sign that she was past the angry bear stage of the morning. She took one look at him and said, "Do I even want to know?"

Merlin shook his head. "You really don't, Mum." But he told her anyway. Merlin could see the effort she was making to let him finish talking before exploding, and he appreciated it. After telling her about the king's punishment, he spent a full minute grovelling and apologizing, claiming he'd never be so stupid again.

In the end, she only yelled at him a little. She also said he wouldn't get to open the rest of his presents till some unknown date in the future, when she was certain he had learned his lesson. Then she sent him off to shower and dress, giving him a slap on his backside as he went.


	14. In which Arthur learns to wash dishes

Many thanks for the comments! I love knowing what you think and chatting with other Merlin fans. :-)

Only three chapters left!

* * *

Chapter Fourteen: In which Arthur learns how to wash dishes and Merlin won't follow orders

* * *

The Christmas feast was the most amazing thing Merlin had ever seen. The Great Hall was dressed up so beautifully that Merlin was positive that all the visiting princesses (and there were more than a few) were jealous. The guests were served course after course of the most scrumptious foods Merlin had ever had. He only knew the names for about half the things he ate, but his lack of knowledge didn't affect his enjoyment of the meal in any way. The only problem with it was that it finished too quickly. No matter that the feast lasted for nearly three hours, from the appetizers and drinks at the beginning to the Christmas pies and coffee at the end. Merlin didn't mind the idea of going to work in the kitchens for the rest of the day, but he was dreading spending that time with an angry Arthur.

He did his best to ignore the royal turniphead, who was sitting up on the dais with the king, Morgana, and a few important guests. Whenever Merlin glanced that way, he remembered that it was the prince who had thrown the first fistful of ash. Merlin had no choice but to defend himself. How dare that clotpole be angry at him?!

His mum spoke with him throughout the feast, commenting on how lovely it all was, sharing stories about her new friends, and occasionally questioning him about school. By mutual consent neither of them spoke of the attack at the pool house nor the fiasco from that morning. Mostly Mum drank her wine (perhaps more than Merlin had ever seen her drink before, but it had been a rather trying couple of days) and spoke with some of the other guests. They sat at a table with the families of other staff lucky enough to not work on Christmas Day. There was a lot of gossip about the ins and outs of palace life. For the most part it was tedious, but Merlin kept listening, hoping to hear stories confirming the prattishness of a certain prince. He was thoroughly disappointed. No one had much to say about Arthur beyond the fact that he stayed shut up in his rooms a lot, and did the king really think that was good for him?

There was a long pause before the dessert course was served. Uncle Gaius came to speak with Mum for awhile, and Merlin took advantage of the chance to go visit Gwen, who was sitting at a nearby table. She beamed at him, then stood up to give him a hug. It was hard to believe Merlin had met her yesterday; it felt like they were old friends. Apparently shared trauma could do that.

As they hugged, he whispered in her ear, "Are you okay?" She nodded. It was obvious she wanted to discuss more about what had happened in the pool house, but they couldn't in front of the others. Instead, she stepped away and introduced Merlin to her father Tom, a large cheery man who slapped him hard on his back, and to her boyfriend Lance, who greeted him with a slight bow and friendly smile.

Lance was frighteningly handsome, and Merlin felt like a stunted potato in comparison. But Lance asked how Merlin liked it in the palace, and suggested he go swimming with them . . . when the pool was fixed of course . . . and did Merlin like footie or bowling. . . ? Before Merlin could remember to be intimidated, he had plans to go see a movie with Lance and Gwen and some of their friends.

When the Christmas pies were served, so Merlin wished them a happy Christmas and went back to sit with his mum. Gaius was still there, sitting in Merlin's chair. As he stood up, Gaius gave Merlin a hug and said, "We'll be starting your lessons the first week of January. Every Monday in my office at five o'clock. Don't be late. Happy Christmas!"

Merlin said, "What lessons—?" but Gaius was gone. He turned to his mum. "What is he talking about, Mum?"

She just smiled and said, "Now isn't the time. We'll discuss it at home." She then took a large bite of her mince pie, and Merlin knew he'd get no more out of her.

Shortly after the dessert course was cleared away by a host of wait staff, George tapped him on the shoulder, whispering, "It's time, Mr Emrys." Merlin's mum gave him a look that clearly said "behave yourself", and off they went. Merlin had to wait outside the Great Hall until George reappeared with Arthur. The kitchens were nearby, but George insisted they return to their rooms to change their clothing into something suitable for kitchen work. Arthur muttered about not having anything suitable to wear for kitchen work—why would he?—but Merlin was relieved to change out of his shirt and tie. Mum had wanted Merlin to wear a formal suit to the feast, but she hadn't yet been paid for her first month's work. Merlin was thrilled he didn't have to wear a tuxedo like Arthur; what he had on was bad enough.

George went in with Arthur to help remove his tux, a slow process. Merlin waited in the Christmas catalogue room, the scene of that morning's crime. Somehow, it was mostly clean again. The cushions and decorative pillows were missing, probably removed for dry-cleaning, but the carpet had been cleaned and the furniture scrubbed. Merlin shook his head in disbelief. It must be nice to have an army of cleaners at your beck and call. He noticed there were wrapped gifts still under the tree and wondered if he'd ever get to open his. Mum might never be in a present-opening mood again.

At last Arthur emerged from his room, wearing a freshly-ironed collared shirt, slacks, and shiny dress shoes. It wasn't kitchen-duty clothing and Merlin wanted to tell him so. But they were each pretending that the other didn't exist, and Merlin wasn't going to mess with that. Being ignored was preferable to being yelled at or tackled. The prat was probably afraid someone would sell his picture to the press. Heaven forbid he look like a normal person.

As they moved through the halls, the silence was so frigid Merlin was surprised icicles didn't sprout from the garlands they passed. He followed George, staying ahead of Arthur and his security, trying to appear both confident and dismissive. He doubted he was successful.

They passed a few of the staff in the halls, who nodded politely to the prince and pretended not to notice Merlin. Maybe Arthur had sent out instructions to the employees that it was Ignore Merlin Day? Hopefully it was only a day, not a week or month or, God help him, a year. . . . How miserable could life in the palace be?

#

The work in the kitchens might have been fun if Arthur hadn't been so pouty. The head cook set them to scraping, scrubbing, and rinsing dirty dishes at the sinks. The kitchen used mechanical dishwashers, but the large feast had created so many dirty dishes that there was no way for the machines to keep up. The prince had never washed a dish before, and complained loudly about the indignity of it. Merlin, for his part, endured the indignity of having to teach a teen-ager how to do the dishes.

One of the sinks was filled with hot, soapy water. Merlin had the near-constant desire to slime the top of Arthur's head with scummy soap bubbles. But with the mood Arthur was in, that'd be a disaster of epic proportions. So after providing a basic dishwashing lesson, Merlin kept to himself, scrubbing till his fingers were pruny and raw.

Arthur refused to speak to him unless absolutely necessary. Half an hour passed with only the clang of dishes and splash of water punctuating the silence. Then Arthur slammed a stack of plates into the sink and stalked away. Merlin startled as the dishes crashed, several shattering with the impact. A heartbeat later, the serving platter Merlin was scrubbing split in two with a loud crack. He peered around to see if anyone had noticed his unruly magic, took a deep breath, then placed the cracked platter on top of Arthur's broken dishes. Perhaps it could be blamed on a cranky prince, not an out-of-control warlock.

Arthur, meanwhile, had gone to harangue one of the kitchen staff, who nodded her head frantically in response. She scurried away, and Arthur strode back over to the sink, a stormy look on his face. He peered down at the pile of cracked china, growled, then said, "Honestly, Merlin. I know you're incompetent, but this is extreme. Take care of this mess before I report you to the head cook."

Merlin wanted to slap the sneer right off Arthur's obnoxious face. "You supercilious arse! You know damn well this mess is yours!" Except for the platter Merlin's magic broke. . . . But Arthur didn't need to know about that.

"And who do you think Cook is going to believe? A scrawny little troublemaker, or the heir to the throne? Clean this up before somebody decides to take it out of your mother's paycheck."

Merlin was so angry he thought his heart might explode. "You are nothing but a pompous, supercilious, bone-idle toad!"

"Those are some big words, Merlin. Are you sure you know what they mean?"

While Merlin struggled to think of an adequate reply, George appeared at the kitchen door. Arthur went to speak with him. George disappeared for ten minutes, and the whole time Arthur stood against the wall with arms folded across his chest and face in a pout.

Merlin picked through the dishes in Arthur's sink, tossing the broken ones and shooting venomous looks in the prince's direction. If only looks could kill . . . . Then again, perhaps Merlin's looks _could_ kill. He better not wish too many painful deaths on the heir to the throne, lest one come true. That wouldn't be so bad in itself, but then Mum would be out of a job. And they'd probably re-institute the death penalty just for him.

When George returned, he had the spoiled brat's super-expensive noise-cancelling headphones. Arthur put them on, then pulled his mobile out of his pocket to set music to play. He came back to the sink, telling Merlin, "They refused to turn on music. Said it could be audible in the Great Hall and they wouldn't risk interfering with Lady Helen's performance. Ridiculous. But at least this way I won't have to listen to you whinge about your poor little hurt feelings."

Merlin ignored him.

Arthur finally got back to work, but now he sang loudly to music only he could hear. Merlin swore he did it to be as annoying as possible, crooning along painfully out-of-tune. Merlin longed to yank the headphones off and dunk them in the sink.

The wait staff stopped bringing in plates, but only bore the occasional cup and saucer. There were many pots to scrub, though, caked with dried-on, crusty food remnants. Merlin was aghast that no one had put them in water to soak, and wondered if the kitchen staff had done it on purpose. Perhaps they wanted to give the prince an extra-warm welcome? If Arthur was as pratty to them as he was to Merlin, he really couldn't blame them.

It was almost time for the Lady Helen to sing. Excitement buzzed through the kitchen. Several workers wanted to hide in the servants' entrance to the Great Hall and listen awhile. After some cajoling, the head cook said, "Fine, be off with you. But don't dally too long, and no one will be going home till all the work is done."

There was a rush to the door. Arthur finally noticed and removed his headphones to find out what was going on. Once he learned of the plan to listen to the concert, a scheming look appeared on his face. Merlin supposed he wanted to see the Lady Helen sing without having to skulk in servants' entrances, which would be most un-princely of him.

Merlin could see the wheels turning in the prince's head. "If I leave without you, Cook will see you and wonder where I've gone. If we both go, maybe she won't notice, out of sight, out of mind. I don't fancy your presence right now, but I think you'll have to come with me."

"What makes you think I fancy your presence? I have no desire get in more trouble just to see some stuffy lady sing. Your father won't exile you for sneaking away, but I'm already on thin ice. For some strange reason Mum really likes it here and I don't want to mess this up for her."

Arthur reached out to grab Merlin's arm in a pinching grip. "Merlin. You are coming with me. That is an order!"

Merlin dug in his heels. "You don't actually have the authority to order me around, your Highness." Merlin tried to make it sound like 'stupidhead'. "Despite what you might think, you're neither the king, my teacher, or my mother. And—I—don't want—to—go—with you!"

Arthur dragged Merlin half-way across the room. Merlin gave him a sharp kick in the shin.

"You little imp!" The prince grunted, but did not let go of his hold. He dragged Merlin a few more steps, but then something long and thin whacked him hard across his upper arm.

Arthur spun around to see the head cook standing there with a wooden spoon. He let go of Merlin as if he had been burned. "And just where do you think you're going, Your Highness? Your father gave me full authority to keep you here till the work is done, and I don't see a clean kitchen. Do you?"

The prince turned bright red from one ear to the other. "No, ma'am," he said, looking as if death would be preferable to reprimands from Cook. "We'll just get back to work, then."

"Damn straight." She stood there in her dirty apron, angry curls escaping her hair net, scowling at them. Merlin hurried back to the sink, Arthur following closely. Cook continued to stare at them, even once they resumed scrubbing the dishes.


	15. In which Merlin and Arthur work together

Chapter Fifteen: In which Merlin and Arthur work together, barely

* * *

It was just the two of them, Cook, and about three other workers that had stayed in the kitchen. One of Arthur's security guards remained nearby; the other had disappeared, probably to the same place as everyone else. No one was particularly chatty, not even the other employees. There were only the sounds of pots banging, dishware clinking, water splashing, sponges scrubbing.

And then—something else. Was that singing? Merlin stopped scraping his pot, hoping to hear better. Despite what the kitchen maid had said, he didn't think sound from the Great Hall should be audible. Maybe the servants had left open the doors between the two places? Merlin walked to the door of the kitchen, which had been propped open, and stuck his head out into the passageway beyond.

For a moment, Merlin thought he had imagined it, but then he heard music again. It was definitely a woman singing. The doors must have been left open when the workers went to listen to the concert. There seemed something peculiar about the voice, though. It must be the Lady Helen, but the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. The voice was lovely, yes, but also made him uncomfortable at the same time, the kind of feeling one gets when listening to two glasses being rubbed against each other. Merlin cringed away from it.

He began to walk up the passage, towards the sound, heedless of Arthur following right after him. The prat probably thought Merlin had changed his mind about sneaking into the concert, and Merlin didn't care to set him straight. The only saving grace was that at least Arthur was quiet, probably hoping that Cook wouldn't notice they had gone. Arthur's security guard was nowhere to be seen. The prince was stealthier than Merlin gave him credit for. Must have had lots of practice during a lifetime of being constantly watched.

When Merlin saw the first of the regular palace guards slumped on the floor, he assumed the guy had snuck a bit too much alcohol. But as the music grew louder and Merlin let out an uncontrollable yawn, he saw another body slumped against a wall farther up the corridor. His magic fizzed inside of him, and that's when he finally realized.

"Magic!" he exclaimed, then clapped his hand over his mouth, worried that he had drawn unwanted attention. But when he looked up and down the passage, the only people he saw were asleep.

He was embarrassed it had taken him so long to detect the undercurrent of magic in the song. Now that he realised, it was horribly obvious.

Arthur had lowered his headphones at some point. He whispered, "Quiet, idiot!", then yawned wide enough to show his tonsils.

Merlin's limbs were growing heavier by the second—they had no time to waste. He grabbed Arthur's hand and mouthed at him, "Run!" Of course the prat didn't move. Why would he ever deign to follow orders? Merlin let go of him and sprinted back to the kitchen, the sound of the eerie music chasing after him like a swarm of singing bees. He ducked back into the kitchen, but noticed that the workers there (including Arthur's guard, who had gone to chat with a kitchen maid) were also yawning and slumping to the floor. Merlin tore past them all, straight to the walk-in pantry at the back of the kitchen, and slammed the door.

He tried to slam the door, at least, but there was an arm in the way.

There was a yelp of pain. "Bloody hell, Merlin! What'd you do that for?" Arthur was holding his left arm close, protecting it from any other unexpected impacts.

Merlin panted from the exertion. "For—God's—sake—close—the—door!" Arthur stared at him, so Merlin shoved him aside and yanked the door shut. He could still hear the whisper of music. It was enough to raise his hackles, but he didn't feel he was going to keel over to sleep at any moment.

Arthur still stared at him, bemused. "Merlin. Will you please tell me why we are hiding in a closet? This is a bit strange, even for you."

"Magic!" Merlin panted. "Didn't you—hear—the spell—in the song?"

Arthur stared at him like he had grown a third eye. "It was just a song, Merlin. A very good song, I might add, that we could have been listening to, if you weren't such a nitwit."

Merlin put his hands on his head, trying to think. "Arthur." He spoke as deliberately as he could, trying to convey the seriousness of the situation. "There is sleeping magic in that music. Didn't you notice the two guards in the corridor were both asleep?"

Arthur huffed, but otherwise appeared relaxed, leaning against the pantry wall. Too relaxed for someone who believed what Merlin was saying. "They must have been lazing around on the job. It's been known to happen."

Merlin seethed at him. "It was magic! I could feel it! And if we don't do something right now, bad things are going to happen!"

Arthur recoiled at the vehemence of his tone. Stubborn as always, he said, "I don't believe you. What could you possibly know about magic? And besides, we have guards to take care of any problems."

Merlin had started rooting around in the pantry, looking for things to help him. He found some paper towels and ripped off small bits to roll into earplugs. He wasn't sure they would be good enough, but he had to try.

Before he stuffed them in his ear, he tried one more time to Arthur. "You will just have to trust me, sire. Your guards will not be able to help you. They are all asleep. So if you want to stay in a pantry and hide like a girl, be my guest. I am going to go find out what is going on. My mum is still at the feast, and if anything ever happened to her I could never forgive myself. I recommend that if you do come with me, find something to block out sound."

Then he stuffed his homemade earplugs into his ears and opened the door. He saw Arthur putting his headphones back on, but didn't wait for him. He took off at a run, heading towards the servants' entrance to the Great Hall. As he went, he encountered a number of sleeping bodies. He hoped they were merely sleeping, and not dead. Soon he noticed cobwebs starting to grow over the sleepers. It was spooky, and Merlin wondered if this was how the prince felt when finally emerging into Sleeping Beauty's castle.

The servants' entrance was crowded with the bodies of the kitchen workers who had snuck away. It was hard for Merlin to get around them, and he whispered apologies to the ones he stepped on. As he made it to the tapestry that obscured the doorway, he noticed Arthur following him, headphones in place. Merlin hoped he had music playing; he wasn't sure the ear pieces by themselves would block the sound sufficiently if they found the source of the music.

Merlin and Arthur peered into the room, each peeking around a different side of the tapestry. The Great Hall was shrouded in cobwebs, an unearthly blanket for the sleeping guests. The guards were all asleep, too, and Merlin dearly wanted to tell Arthur "I told you so!" But it'd have to wait.

Near the head table, where the king and Morgana were slumped in their chairs, stood a dark-haired woman in a gauzy blue and gold dress, eyes focused on Morgana. The deep breaths she took for singing were the only movement in the room. Everything else was utterly still.

As Merlin watched, he realised the song was fighting its way through his earplugs, giving him goosebumps and the urge to sleep both. He clamped his hands over his ears, trying to keep the enchantment out. He thought his magic was helping him to stay awake, but wasn't sure how much longer he could fight it.

He looked over at Arthur, who remained awake, but seemed paralyzed at the sight in front of him. Merlin wasn't sure what to do either. So far, the sorceress had done nothing but sing and gaze at Morgana as if she were a tasty morsel.

And then the sorceress moved, drawing a dagger out of her dress and stalking towards Morgana, singing all the while. Arthur jolted out of his paralysis, running towards the sorceress. Merlin didn't think he'd make it in time. The dagger was raised over Morgana's head, ready to plunge into the back of her neck.

Merlin recalled the sleep spell he had practiced. He winced at the irony of using the witch's weapon of choice against her. He thrust out his arms and yelled, " _Swefe nu_!" Nothing happened. Except—the sorceress spun around, a look of surprise on her face. Her mouth fell briefly shut, as though she had faltered in her singing. Merlin forgot that although he and Arthur couldn't hear, the sorceress still could. The good news was that Morgana was no longer in imminent danger of being skewered by a dagger. The bad news was that Arthur was sprinting straight towards a murderous psycho lady holding a dagger and armed with who knew what else, magical or otherwise.

The prat had said he had been trained to kill since birth. Perhaps he'd finally get the chance.

The sorceress lifted her arm, a malicious smile playing on her lips. It looked like Arthur was going to charge straight to his death. Merlin panicked. Magic exploded out of him. Heat burnt through his limbs, followed by icy cold. With a tremendous noise, the chandelier hanging closest to the king's table crashed down on the sorceress. She collapsed under the weight of the enormous light fixture. After a moment of relief (and worry about how he'd be able to pass that off as an accident), Merlin noticed the sorceress was not moving at all. He feared that she was dead, that he had killed her.

There would be time to worry about that later. Merlin pulled the paper towel out of his ears and ran to find his mother. All around them people were waking, and the room thrummed with noise. The webs had receded, and the guests were clearly confused about what had happened. Some shrieked in fear at the wreckage of the chandelier, others yelled for the guards to come fight the giant spiders they were certain were around. Some were calling for the Lady Helen, afraid something had happened to her. Merlin assumed that Lady Helen had been the singing sorceress, in which case something had indeed happened to her. Nothing she didn't deserve, though.

Merlin found his mum at the same table they had eaten at, surrounded by her new friends. She seemed groggy and disoriented, but otherwise unharmed. He threw himself into her arms. "You're okay!" he yelled. He hugged her harder.

Mum pushed him away, confused. "Why wouldn't I be? What's going on, Merlin?"

He took a breath to answer, but was interrupted by a piercing scream. He spun around to see that the sorceress had pushed her way out from underneath the chandelier. She was no longer the beautiful young lady she had been, but a shriveled old woman with wild grey hair, a ratty brown robe hanging off her bony shoulders.

Merlin froze in astonishment, both at her appearance and at the fact that the person he thought he had _killed_ was alive and well. He felt the tiniest flicker of relief that he wasn't a murderer, when she raised her arm, angry eyes flashing gold, and hurled the knife she held straight at Arthur.

Merlin didn't see any way Arthur could avoid being skewered. The Great Hall erupted in screams. Everyone present was riveted by the sight of the dagger hurtling towards their prince. Merlin yelled too, threw up his hands, felt the heat rushing out of his body, and then—

And then everything stopped. The world was completely frozen, the evil sorceress hag lady motionless like a statue. Merlin blinked in surprise. He hadn't meant to do that. Not exactly.

"Merlin!" a voice yelled at him. "What, on God's green earth, did you do?!"

Okay, apparently the whole entire world hadn't frozen completely. Of course his magic would decide to leave the single most annoying person he had ever met free to provide color commentary on this little escapade. Apparently his magic hated him.

"Me?!" Merlin yelled back, not quite daring to look over at Arthur. He was sure his eyes were glowing golden, and the crazy attacking sorceress lady seemed less frightening than looking over at Arthur to see what he might be thinking. "What makes you think I did something?"

"Well, Merlin, I clearly haven't done anything. And you're the only other person not frozen. Therefore, by the process of elimination. . . ." Ugh. Merlin just wanted to reach out and smack that arrogant, self-satisfied tone right out of the Prince's drawl. But. Priorities. First he should probably figure out what he did to the world and make a plan to deal with the crazy attacking singing spiderweb lady.

"Besides," that smug voice drawled on, "you're glowing. There are actual golden sparkles twinkling around your head. I must say, you're really not doing a very good job of convincing me that you're not an elf."

Merlin, who was on the verge of freaking out, really didn't want to listen to the prat anymore. He needed to think, to figure out what to do so that the currently frozen crazy sorceress lady wasn't successful at killing Arthur (although it was kind of tempting to just let it happen). And the longer they dallied, the harder it was for Merlin to concentrate. His head was starting to feel fuzzy and sweat was starting to drip off his forehead. And nose. And shoulder blades. And—Merlin shook his head, trying to clear out all the noise. Since when was a frozen world so very loud?

Arthur continued. "Honestly, only you would be idiotic enough to use magic in front of a whole room of people, not once but twice."

Merlin grit his teeth, finding it harder to talk. "I was trying to save your life, you prat. Besides, I didn't really have control over it. It kind of just happened."

"You didn't need to overreact. I could have taken her! I've been—"

"—trained to kill since birth. I know. You've said. But what about now, oh warrior prince? There's a knife headed straight for you."

"She wouldn't have been able to throw that knife at me if you'd let me deal with her. When I incapacitate someone, they stay incapacitated."

"I'll try to remember that for next time." Merlin groaned with pain. "But, for now, could you just shut up and let me think for minute? This whole stopping time thing is harder than it looks."

"Oh, is that what you did? You couldn't have just . . . I don't know . . . made the knife go . . . poof?"

By this time Arthur had walked into Merlin's field of vision. That at least solved one problem, as he was safely out of the knife's trajectory. Now Merlin had to face him, and he really wasn't ready for the you're-a-lying-criminal accusations.

But when Arthur came around to look in his face, he didn't seem that angry. Was that . . . interest? Concern? Merlin wondered if maybe he'd begun hallucinating.

"Actually, you're not looking so well. How long do you think you can hold it?"

Merlin grunted. "I don't know! Can we please focus on making a plan?"

"Oh, right." Arthur sounded strangely discomfited, as if he'd forgotten about the crazy evil sorceress hell-bent on killing him and/or his sister and was ever-so-slightly embarrassed by it. "How about you just, er, unfreeze time and zap her dead?"

Merlin was starting to tremble all over with exertion and felt an extreme urge to be sick on Arthur's overly-shiny shoes. The world was turning grey around him, and the buzzing in his ears kept growing louder.

"Arthur." He gritted his teeth, took a shaky breath, and went on, "I'm about to pass out. I don't actually know how to zap anybody. And aren't you the one who has been trained to fight since birth?"

Merlin thought he saw Arthur move away from him, but his vision was almost completely gone. He just barely heard Arthur say, "Well, then, how about you unfreeze time and I'll just hit her over the head with this candelabra?" before he toppled to the ground with a thump, vomited up his Christmas dinner, and then knew no more.


	16. In which Merlin sleeps a lot

Chapter 16: In which Merlin sleeps a lot

* * *

When Merlin woke up again, he was in an unfamiliar room. He noticed three things: one, he felt like he had that time he'd accidentally poisoned himself trying to make homemade medicine; two, there was a horrid smell of vomit coming from the vicinity of his hair; and three, Prince Prat himself was sitting right next to his bed.

"Ugh. I think I'd rather have stayed asleep," Merlin groaned. He really preferred to deal with the prat when at full-strength. "Where's Mum?"

"Miss Hunith is talking to Gaius on the phone. She'll be back soon. How do you feel?"

Merlin almost told Arthur about the time he'd poisoned himself. That would have been incredibly stupid, giving Arthur endless mocking material. Thankfully, before he could, his mother burst through the door and rushed to throw her arms around him.

"Oh Merlin, thank God! I was so worried! When Gaius convinced me to move here, saying that the prince needed your magic, I never thought he meant anything like this! I could never forgive myself if anything ever happened to you!"

Merlin struggled to disentangle himself from his mother's arms, swallowing a wave of nausea as he did so. "Wait, what? The prince needed . . . Gaius knows. . . ?" He really wasn't feeling well enough for this.

"Oh, honey, of course he knows about your magic. I asked him for help when you were born. Your eyes burnt gold for three days and I panicked."

Merlin frowned. "Did he actually help? My magic has mostly just been a disaster. . . ." His stomach churned at the thought. Or maybe that was just the nausea.

"There really wasn't much to be done. Your eyes faded to blue on their own. He did offer tutoring when you were old enough. That's one reason he worked so hard to convince the king to give me this position."

Merlin wanted to say, "How come you never told me about any of this?" But before the conversation could go any farther, Merlin started retching, spraying the last dregs of his stomach all over the bedspread.

"Ewwww!" Arthur groaned, but he quickly went to roll the blanket up and take it to the laundry chute. Merlin could barely believe his eyes, but felt much too ill to question them.

Merlin's mum quickly grabbed some towels and used them to clean him up. He found he was shaking and sweating, and could barely keep his eyes open. His head began pounding with a vengeance and his eyes began watering. He whispered, "What's wrong with me?"

But his mum only murmured, "We'll talk about this when you're feeling better. Sleep, my love." And he did.  
#

Time passed oddly after that. There seemed to be voices talking to him, but he couldn't quite figure out what they were saying. Sometimes he swore his mum was there, cuddling him, and other times he was alone, drifting off into an endless darkness. At least he didn't feel sick anymore, just kind of floaty and peaceful. Once he thought he heard something about being the laziest elf ever, and he wanted to say 'at least I saved your arse, you prat', but he wasn't sure if he could make his mouth work. Shame, he thought, as he drifted off into the sweetly-calling darkness. Who will keep the turniphead in line now?

Merlin woke up coughing, the smell of skunk burning his throat and making his eyes tear up. Gaius was there, waving a burning stick over his chest. Mum was sitting on the bed next to him, looking more worried than Merlin had ever seen her.

Gaius gave the stick a few more passes in front of Merlin's face, then said, "Oh, what a relief. If that didn't work, we were going to have to take you to hospital, and I really didn't fancy explaining to the doctors what was wrong with you. Now drink this."

And Gaius shoved a water bottle at him. Merlin was horribly confused and desperately tried to cough the acrid burning of skunk out of his lungs. But Mum helped him sit up a little to drink from the straw in the bottle. It tasted a little odd.

"What is. . . ," he rasped. But then he was coughing and coughing, gasping desperately for air. He felt the sudden urge to vomit, and Gaius held up a pot for him just in time. He expelled a large amount of smoke-colored mucus. And then some more. He wondered if he might be dying, and wished it would just hurry up and happen already. He could feel his mum rubbing his back; each stroke burned, but he couldn't get enough air to tell her. There was more coughing, and more retching, and more coughing and retching. But then he began to feel better. His airways stopped burning, the coughing ceased, and the nausea slowly disappeared. His head felt like some woodpeckers were stuck inside, trying to peck their way out. But otherwise, he no longer felt that offing himself would be preferable to staying awake.

"Ah, yes, that treatment does tend to cause some rather severe side effects. But it's hard not to use when it proves to be so effective." Gaius was looking entirely too pleased with himself for someone who had just witnessed what was probably the worst moment of Merlin's life.

He finally recovered enough to try to speak. "What happened?" His voice was raspy and unfamiliar.

Mum laid him back into the bed and squeezed his hand. "You wouldn't wake up, sweetie, and you were severely dehydrated. I wanted to take you to A&E, but Gaius said he had something he could try first.

Gaius said, "Yes, the skunkweed incense, in conjunction with a few spells, usually does the trick. I'm afraid you had to breathe in a large amount and it does tend to accumulate in the lungs. That potion I gave you is meant to help you expel the residue." Gaius passed him some tissues. Merlin wiped at his face, but was more interested in finding out what the heck had happened.

"But why wouldn't I wake up?"

Mum answered, "Well, sweetie, as far as we can tell, you stopped time for rather a long while, overdid it, and just about died from a rather severe case of magical exhaustion."

Gaius peered at him over the edges of his spectacles. "You are aware that ten-year old boys are not meant to stop time? To be honest, I don't think anybody is meant to stop time. But if they were to do it, it would be after years of study and controlled practice. Not on a whim! You could have been killed!"

Merlin recoiled a little. "Er, sorry? But it's not like I meant to do it. It just kind of happened when I didn't know what else to do." Merlin's voice cracked, and he reached out for the glass of water that Gaius held out. He sipped at it cautiously, remembering the effects of the last liquid he had been given. But this turned out to be nothing but plain water, and it felt silky smooth going down his parched and burnt throat.

Drinking gave him time to reconsider a bit. "Actually, I'm not sorry at all. That crazy witchy lady had used a spell to hurl a knife at Arthur. If the knife didn't kill him, I think the spell was meant to. There is no way I was going to do nothing and let her kill that cabbagehead, no matter how much of a prat he can be."

Gaius sighed. "Well, next time, could you perhaps try to save the prince a little bit faster? He says you froze time for nigh on five minutes."

"Try telling Arthur that! He's the one who kept nattering on about being trained to kill instead of actually doing anything. Guess he was trying to kill me with all that prattle instead."

Mum sighed. "Couldn't you have . . . I don't know . . . tried something else? Made a shield like Princess Morgana did? Pushed Arthur out of the way? Turned the knife into feathers? You certainly had no trouble turning that rake into feathers last fall when I asked you to sweep up the leaves."

Merlin huffed. "I told you that was an accident, Mum! I don't know how to do it on purpose." He started coughing, and took several deep sips of water.

"Merlin! You could have died!" Her voice bordered on hysterical.

"I know! I just panicked, all right? You know I have no clue what I'm doing." Merlin took a long draught of water, then closed his eyes, exhausted.

Gaius spoke in a level voice, a sharp contrast to his mother's emotional one. "This is why you need tutoring. . . . If I'd known you were going to get into this much trouble so soon, I'd have started your lessons right away."

Merlin was just awake enough to think, Magic lessons. . . . He means magic lessons. . . . Maybe he could teach me to turn prats into toads. . .

And then he was asleep, dreaming of toads and princes and enchantments, hoping that none of them would need to be broken with a kiss. . . .

When Merlin woke up again, he was alone. He looked around to realise he was in a room he'd never seen before. He hadn't been paying much attention the previous times he woke, what with all the confusion and retching and coughing and startling talk of magic lessons. The bed he lay on was large and comfy, covered with a deep blue duvet, and there were curtains in a matching shade. The floor was wooden and the walls were covered with built-in shelves. The shelves were mostly empty, but some were filled with books and . . . were those comics? Where was he?

He decided he felt well enough to get up and investigate. He took a long drink of water from the cup on the nightstand, then walked to the door, which was partially open. He peered outside and realised he was in the hallway that lead to Arthur's rooms. Arthur's ugly ancestors were staring down at him disapprovingly. Merlin scowled at them. "Sorry for polluting your royal hallway with sorcerous peasant blood," he muttered.

The next door was the one that lead to Arthur's bedroom. It was shut, so Merlin headed to the Christmas catalogue room, where he heard voices. Upon entering, he saw his mum sitting on the white sofa in front of the fire, speaking quietly with Gaius, who was perched in a nearby armchair. The room had been restored to pristine condition, no ashes, cinders, or misappropriated hazelnut projectiles in sight.

Merlin went to sit next to his mum on the sofa. She wrapped him up in a big hug. "Feeling better, then?" she asked. Merlin thought for a moment, assessing, and answered, "Yes, much better, I think."

Gaius looked over at him and asked, "Not feeling the urge to do any more inadvisable magic, then?"

Merlin grinned and said, "Nope. Not unless a crazy person comes in throwing knives. Whatever happened with that witchy lady anyway? I wasn't expecting the Lady Helen to turn into a murderous hag."

Mum squeezed him closer. "To start with, that wasn't the Lady Helen. The real Lady Helen was found dead three days ago, killed as part of the enchantment that let the witch steal her appearance."

Merlin shuddered. "Then who was it, then? She was clearly powerful, capable of putting all those people to sleep. I can't even get one person to go to sleep when I want them to."

Gaius spoke up. "That's because you've had no training, Merlin. You are certainly powerful enough to do so. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone else able to freeze time, let alone for five minutes. You just have no control because no one has ever taught you, a situation I plan to remedy as soon as you are healthy again.

"As for the witch . . . that was Mary Collins, the mother of—"

"—Thomas Collins," Merlin said. "Yeah, Arthur told me about them. Sounded to me like those two were giving magicians a bad name."

"Indeed," said Gaius, raising an eyebrow at him, clearly not pleased with the interruption.

Merlin grinned sheepishly at him.

It was Mum who continued the conversation. "We won't have to worry about Mary Collins anymore, thanks to you and Arthur. She's been safely captured and locked into the magic-suppression cells."

Gaius looked at him severely, daring him to interrupt again, then continued in a kinder voice. "The kingdom owes a lot to the two of you. Mary Collins was the main force behind the rebels, and now that she's been apprehended, the malcontents will have lost their leader. Besides, with your example of good magic and the king's obvious support —"

"What!" Merlin shrieked. "My example. . . ? What example. . . !?"

The fire in the grate flared abruptly, causing the logs to collapse, shooting up a cloud of sparks and ash.

Mum wrapped her arm around his shoulders, squeezing so tightly it hurt. "Calm down, sweetie. Everything is fine. . . . "

Merlin pushed her hand away and stood up. He was too agitated to sit and be cuddled. "Tell me what you mean by my 'example of good magic'!"

Gaius gazed at him calmly, with a hint of amusement on his face. "You didn't really think you could do major magic in front of hundreds of people, not once but twice, without anyone noticing?"

Merlin fell back to the sofa as if he were a puppet whose strings had been cut. His mum immediately wrapped her arms around him again. He was appalled at how tiny his voice sounded when he finally spoke. "But . . . everybody was asleep . . . and then I thought maybe they wouldn't notice the whole freezing time thing, on account of them being _frozen in time_. . . ."

Gaius merely shook his head at him. "There will always be someone who noticed, Merlin. Or, in this case, a room full of someones. Everyone saw the knife being thrown at the prince, and you weren't exactly subtle when you decided to exclude the rest of us from your reality. Everyone saw you throw up your arms in a golden flash; an instant later and the prince had moved out of the knife's trajectory and the sorceress was unconscious on the floor. It was obvious that you had somehow used magic to save the prince's life."

Merlin put his hands on his forehead, muttering "no, no, no" to himself. He looked up at his mum. "Sorry, Mum, I know you always told me to keep it hidden. I let you down. . . ." He paused, then added, "How come I haven't been arrested yet? Are they just waiting for me to wake up? Too noble to arrest an unconscious child?"

"Oh, no, no, honey! No one is going to arrest you. The king has declared you a hero. He's using your example as evidence to the council that magic can be used for good. He hopes to decriminalize magic eventually. But for now, you've been granted immunity. The king proposed it, and the council agreed, based on your service to the crown." His mum smiled broadly at him, her pride in him clearly reflected in her eyes.

Merlin stuttered. "But—but I thought the council hated magic. That's why the king wouldn't tell them about Morgana. . . ."

Gaius lifted an eyebrow at him. "And how did you know that? That is supposed to be highly confidential information!"

Merlin gulped, and burrowed a little deeper into his mother's arms. "The king told me. When he was threatening me to not give away Morgana's secret—"

"The king did what!"

"It's fine, Mum. I wasn't going to do anything to hurt her anyway. I know all about keeping secrets. Well . . . at least I used to be good at it. Though it seemed like the king already knew mine. He kept looking at me strangely. . . ."

Gaius leaned back in his armchair, a pensive look on his face. "I think he was more hopeful than certain. You may know that the Princess Morgana is a Seer? She had visions of a dark-haired boy with magic saving Arthur's life. I believe he was hopeful it was you, especially once you set off the experimental magic detectors. Those are prone to false positives, though."

Merlin grimaced, remembering the alarm he had felt when the detector had sounded and the guards had come running. "What's the point of having magic detectors if you just let everyone into the palace anyway? Did they go off for "Lady Helen" too?"

Gaius shook his head. The "Lady Helen" never had to go through security, since she was supposed to be a known and trusted guest of the king. I imagine that protocol will change in the future. And I'm sure you've noticed the high number of guards in the palace. One of their duties is to keep an close eye on anybody who set off the magic detector, just in case."

Merlin considered what he had heard. "You knew I had magic; you could have just told the king." The door to the external corridor opened, though Merlin was too busy thinking to pay much attention.

"That was not my secret to share. And once you were here, it didn't make that much of a difference if he knew. You'd have saved Arthur's life regardless."

A new voice cut into the conversation. "Who said anything about him saving my life? I'm the one who hit the witch hard enough to actually knock her out." Of course it was Arthur. Who else could sound so terribly smug? "Like I told you before, when I incapacitate someone they stay incapacitated."

"You only managed because I _froze time_ for you!"

"If you had done the job properly the first time, none of that would have been necessary! You're as idiotic with magic as you are with everything else, aren't you?"

Merlin was on the verge of anger, but he looked over to see Arthur giving him a warm, almost fond, smile. Merlin just shook his head and said, "You would know all about idiotic behaviour, wouldn't you?" He yawned and curled a little more into his mother's side.

Mum stroked his head, rather like she was petting a cat. "Speaking of idiotic behaviour, you should be in bed." He yawned again, in apparent agreement.

Arthur spoke up loudly, startling him from his peaceful moment. "Before you fall back into your lazy ways, I must ask if you will be finished with this whole fainting-damsel routine by tomorrow night? My father would like to invite you to a Christmas party, for some mysterious reason."

Merlin stared in confusion. "I thought Christmas had already passed by? What day is it?"

Arthur smirked at him. "Well, Sleeping Beauty, it will officially be a Fifth Day of Christmas party. I hear they're all the rage this year. I do expect you to bring me five golden rings." With that, he turned into the hall that lead to his room.

"Spoiled prat." Merlin experienced a sudden rush of affection for the prince, then was seized by a yawn so big it hurt his jaw.

"Let's get you back to bed, Sleepyhead," his mum said. He got up and headed toward the room he shared with his mum, but she led him back to the bed he had woke up in.

"Why'm I sleeping here?" he mumbled, as he lay down, closing his eyes, already half asleep.

She kissed his forehead as she answered, "It was easier to take care of you here. Don't worry about it. Sleep."


	17. The fifth day of Christmas

This is the last chapter. Thank you very much for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. (I tried posting this, and it didn't show as having updated, so I'm trying again. Sorry if that causes any problems.)

* * *

Chapter 17: In which Merlin has a very happy fifth day of Christmas

* * *

The "Fifth Day of Christmas Party" was to be held the next evening in the Christmas catalogue room. When Merlin wondered why they were having the party there, Mum said it was because it was the perfect setting for an intimate gathering. Arthur said it was because disaster followed Merlin everywhere, and it would be best to keep it contained as much as possible.

Arthur stopped by that afternoon, supposedly to check up on Merlin and confirm the party details. Merlin thought he really had come just to mock him as much as possible.

The first thing out of his mouth upon finding Merlin on the sofa was, "I always knew you were an elf. Only elves and Santa Claus would need that long of a lie-in after Christmas."

Merlin groaned. "I'm not an elf! How many times do I have to tell you this?"

Arthur grinned at him. "But you've got magic! That's the clincher. There can be no other explanation."

Merlin threw a pillow at him. Surprisingly, Arthur didn't return the favor. He seemed rather more insistent on making his case.

"C'mon, face it. You're an elf. You're all long and willowy. And your eyes! A blue that bright just couldn't be possible in a normal human being. The ears were always a dead giveaway. And the magic! Maybe you're not the toy-making kind that helps Santa up at the North Pole, but I bet you'd fit right in in Rivendell."

His reasoning was solid. Besides, Rivendell elves were kinda cool.

"Okay, fine. Maybe I'm the tiniest bit like an elf."

The grin Arthur shot him was blinding. "See, Merlin, you should know by now I'm never wrong."

Merlin assumed his most angelic smile. "What I know is that when Santa Claus was delivering brains to all the babies on their first Christmas, he brought you cabbages instead! I guess he thought that preferable to leaving coal for an infant."

Arthur lunged for him, but Merlin squawked, "Hey! I'm an invalid!"

"I'll show you what it means to be an invalid!" Arthur jumped on him, tickling everywhere he could reach. Merlin shrieked with pain and laughter, but Arthur just said, "Oh, don't be such a girl's petticoat," and kept at it.

Merlin's mum came in, and Arthur booked it off the sofa. "Miss Hunith! Hello!" he stammered. Merlin wasn't sure if he'd ever heard Arthur stammer before. "I was just checking that Merlin would be able to attend the party this evening. He seems fine to me. . . ."

Mum gave him a knowing smile, but only said, "We'll be there."  
#

Merlin wasn't sure what to expect from a Christmas party hosted by the king. He worried it would be a formal nightmare, but it turned out more like a family party than anything he had experienced before.

The king came with Arthur and Morgana. Morgana brought Gwen and Lance, since she knew they were fond of Merlin, each having visited several times while he convalesced.

Gaius had come in like some sort of Herr Drosselmeyer, bearing enchanted toys. Merlin received a wooden dragon the size of an apple. When stroked, its wings would flap and the illusion of flame would burst out of its mouth. Occasionally it would lift itself a short way into the air. Merlin was utterly delighted.

George had laid out refreshments on a table, and everyone ate and drank, chatted and laughed. Someone had turned on some Christmas music, the fire crackled merrily, and fairy lights twinkled from the tree, surrounded by piles of presents: everything was perfect.

Merlin noticed two stockings filled with items laid alongside the wrapped gifts under the tree. He couldn't help it—he had to see if the original contents of Arthur's stocking had been recovered. He peeked in his first, and saw that it had been refilled as it had been on Christmas morning. He turned his back to the rest of the room, so that no one would notice him snooping through Arthur's stocking. The programmable robots were there. That was a relief. He'd have been highly displeased with his magic if those robots had vanished. Hopefully that would be something that Gaius could teach him: how to not accidentally disappear objects into the ether.

Once everyone had stuffed themselves on too much peanut brittle and peppermint fudge, the king tapped a spoon to his wine glass, calling for attention.

"Christmas is a time to give thanks for our many blessings, and most especially for our friends and family. Today I want to express gratitude and appreciation for two new friends, Hunith Emrys and her son, Merlin. I want to especially thank Merlin for his actions at the Christmas feast. Arthur tells me it was Merlin who first realized that something was wrong and suggested plugging their ears to avoid the enchantment. It was Merlin who distracted the witch when she was about to kill Morgana"—

"That was an accident," Merlin said under his breath, low enough that the king could not hear.

—"and Merlin who stopped the knife from striking Arthur"—

"Also an accident." Merlin never had been good at accepting praise.

—"and who knows what other damage the witch might have caused while everyone lay helpless asleep. For all these reasons, you have my appreciation and esteem."

The small group burst into cheers and applause. Lance whistled and Gwen ran over to give Merlin a hug. She was quickly followed by Morgana, whose eyes were suspiciously bright. The king came over to shake his hand, and Arthur did likewise. Of course, Arthur then had to shatter the civilized facade by rubbing his knuckles painfully through Merlin's hair, but it had been nice while it lasted.

After that, it was time for presents. Merlin didn't have presents for everyone, but Mum assured him it was okay. He had the necklace for his mum and a "Don't be such a clotpole" T-shirt for Arthur. He knew the chances of Arthur wearing it were tiny, but as soon as he had seen it in the store, he knew it was something that Arthur needed to have.

It turned out that most of the presents were labeled "From Santa Claus", so Merlin didn't feel quite so bad about not having gifts for everyone. He had done all of his Christmas shopping before he had gotten to know Morgana, Gwen, and Lance. And since then, he had spent most of his time either ill or asleep. When he realized that they had all brought presents for him, Merlin vowed to do something nice for them in the not-so-distant future.

Opening the gifts was lots of fun. Merlin got white stuffed dragon from Gwen, who blushed and said it just screamed "Merlin!" to her when she saw it in the store. Lance gave him a new bowling ball, claiming it was much better than any of the balls you'd find at a bowling alley, and they should really make plans to go bowling together soon. Morgana smiled with pride as she presented Merlin his gift. It was deceptively heavy for the size of box it was in. Opening it, he found a leather-bound book, completely lacking a title or any other external decoration. Inside the book, words in a strange language were scribbled next to diagrams and illustrations.

"It's a spell book," Morgana said. "I had a copy made of the one Gaius gave to me. I thought you might like one too, and Gaius agreed."

Merlin's heart rushed with a strange mixture of surprise and joy. "It's brilliant!" He thumbed through the pages, trying to make sense of what he saw. "I'm not quite sure I understand what I'm looking at, though."

Morgana smiled at him, and sounded a bit sympathetic when she said, "Yes, it does take quite a lot of study to make heads or tails of it. But Gaius assured me he was going to teach you."

Merlin beamed at her. "It's perfect! Thank you!"

Merlin received a few other gifts, some from his mum (clothes and a computer game) and one from Santa Claus (a new laptop—score! Merlin suspected the king, but just to be safe yelled a loud "thank you Santa!" to the whole room).

The last gift was in a tiny box, labeled "To: Elf-Boy. From: Cabbagehead." Merlin opened it to find a plain metal key. Merlin looked up from the package to find Arthur standing over him. Merlin grinned.

"It's a lovely key, your Highness. The key to your heart, perhaps?"

Arthur scoffed. "Don't be an idiot. You know I don't have a heart."

Merlin snorted. "Never have truer words been spoken, my friend."

Arthur appeared startled, almost offended, at having been called "friend". Merlin could see him thinking it over, debating whether to let it stand. But then he shook his head and beamed at him, as if coming to some internal understanding.

"It's the key to your new room, you idiot."

Merlin stared at him, perplexed. "My new room?"

"Yes, unless you want to sleep with your mummy for the rest of your life."

Merlin quickly shook his head. "No, no, absolutely not! But—what room are we talking about?"

Arthur, the smug prat, refused to say more. Merlin turned his most imploring puppy dog eyes on him. Arthur threw up his hands in defeat.

"Good grief! How can anyone say no to that? Come with me, then."

The two of them walked to the hall that lead to Arthur's bedroom. Merlin looked back to see that everyone was smiling at him. Mum looked as happy as he had ever seen her, and even the king looked more like a doting uncle than a fearsome regent.

The two of them headed down the hall, past Arthur's room and the portraits of all his ugly ancestors. They stopped at the room Merlin had woken up in. Arthur took the key, unlocked the door, and they went inside.

"Here it is," he said. "Everything here is yours."

Merlin's breath caught in his throat. Now that he was paying attention, he realized that the room was far from empty. Besides the blue bed (the comfiest he had ever slept in), there was a desk sporting a computer, books on the shelves, a chest of drawers with a large mirror, a large trunk on the floor, and clothing hanging in the wardrobe.

Merlin was stunned. "How did you—?"

Arthur smirked at him. "While you were having your little lie-in, I had a lot of time to talk to your mum."

He gestured towards the wardrobe with a wicked smile. "I happen to know there is a tuxedo just your size in there."

But Merlin wasn't going to let the threat of uncomfortable clothing ruin his happiness. He walked over to the shelves to see boxes piled there, not just books. Several of them were LEGO sets, including a large electric train kit.

"But—!" He stared at the train in confusion.

"But what, Merlin?"

"I thought you hated me?" He clapped his hand over his mouth, horrified that he sounded like a girl.

But Arthur didn't Mick him for it. He fiddled with some of the books on the shelf, not quite looking at Merlin. "Don't be silly. Hatred is such a strong word. It'd be more accurate to say that you irritate the heck out of me. But I've also had more fun since you've arrived than. . . ." Arthur trailed off, as if he had decided that was more than Merlin needed to hear. He took a breath, then continued. "And despite the fact that you were too incompetent to knock out that witch, you did save my life."

Merlin rummaged through the boxes on the shelf, hoping that Arthur wouldn't notice him turning red.

"Thank you," he said, not daring to look over at the prince. "This is . . . amazing."

"Don't mention it." Arthur's tone was that of someone who truly wished to never hear about this incident again.

Arthur moved along the shelves to the one containing comics. "You know, this is the complete _Heroes of Albion_ collection, just like the one I have. Though I may have replaced my wrinkled copy of _Beetle Boy and the Troll Queen_ with your new one, since it's your fault it got wrinkled."

Merlin huffed. "No way! That was all you! You were the one that thought it'd be fun to tackle me in my bed!"

"But you shouldn't have been hiding my things in your bed! Totally your fault!"

Merlin threw up his hands in exasperation. "So it would have been fine if it had been my stuff being smooshed by your get-Merlin-out-of-bed crusade?"

Arthur nodded, as if pleased that Merlin had finally seen sense. "Of course! You should know by now that is how things work."

Merlin stared at him, then burst out laughing. "Arthur Pendragon, you are the biggest turniphead I have ever had the misfortune of meeting."

Arthur quirked a smile at him. "But you love me anyway?"

Merlin shook his head at him, then laughed. "I might find you tolerable. Occasionally."

Arthur reached out and punched him lightly on the shoulder. "I guess that's good enough for now."

Arthur went back to looking at the complete set of _Heroes of Albion_ comics. After a moment, he looked up and said, "You know, we could be heroes of Albion too. We did work together to defeat an evil witch."

Merlin snorted. "Yes, and what shall they call us? Elf-Boy and Turniphead?"

Arthur looked up, a smile splitting his face. "Why not? They're as good as the names of any of the actual characters. Beetle Boy? Pixie and Pudsey and Cat Woman? The Questing Beast. . . ? What kind of a name is that?"

Merlin quirked an eyebrow. "So, then, what'll it be? _Elf-Boy and Turniphead Save Christmas_?"

"It would be _Turniphead and Elf-Boy Save Christmas_ , of course."

"Oh my God, you are such a self-absorbed clotpole!"

Arthur donned what Merlin could only consider his cheesiest grin. "But I'm the clotpole that saved Christmas."

Merlin rolled his eyes. "Which is a complete miracle, since for awhile there it looked like Turniphead had ruined Christmas."

Arthur elbowed him in the ribs, causing Merlin to scuttle in the direction of the door, ready to run to safety if things got out of hand. "You mean Elf-Boy and Turniphead almost ruined Christmas."

"Oh, sure, now you let me be first!"

"What are friends for?"

It had clearly been said in jest, but Merlin couldn't stop himself from asking, "Are we friends then?"

Arthur paused for a moment. When he spoke he sounded bashful yet pleased. "We may as well be. It'd certainly make things easier. Besides, we have a comic book to write."

"And trains to run."

Arthur nodded. "And trains to run."

Merlin took a breath, then plowed ahead. "And feather hats to wear. I saved your 'old' one for you to wear to the next party. I'm sure you'd look dashing in it."

A book came hurtling towards him. With a shriek and a laugh, Merlin ran out of the room and slammed the door. He rushed back to the party, lest Arthur get any ideas for more objects to throw.

Mum was standing by the tree, talking to Gaius. She greeted him back with a warm hug, then leaned close to whisper in his ear. "Did you like your Christmas present?"

He nodded. "It's perfect, Mum."

She squeezed him close and said, "I know you didn't want to move to the palace, and I know it's been a rough month. But I'm so proud of how you've handled yourself. I am glad we came, and I think we will be happy here together for a long time."

Merlin recalled feather hats, flying cinders, and shattered dishes, shattered glass, creeping webs, and a murderous witch. He thought of his new bedroom, but also of the turniphead who has given it to him. He considered his new friends, the uncle he didn't realize he had, the king who knew of and accepted his magic.

Yes, he decided. He could be happy here. This Christmas season had been the most challenging, exciting, and joyful time of his life.

"I think we will be, Mum. Besides, we have important work here. The prince needs us to teach him how not to be a cabbagehead."

Mum shook her head and rolled her eyes at him, but didn't correct him. Good, he thought. She knows it's the truth. Instead she smiled at him and said, "Happy Christmas, Merlin."

He smiled right back. "Happy Christmas, Mum."


End file.
